Aisle 10
by Qindarka
Summary: Craig lives in a self-created bubble crafted out of irritation with most people and enough imagination to keep him busy. Then he gets a job, one thing leads to another, and well…you know what eventually happens to a bubble. SLASH CraigTweek
1. Introduction

_A/N: Hi. I haven't written for this fandom in a long time. I haven't written a multi-chaptered fic in forever. THIS ALL FEELS WEIRD, forgive me. Rest assured, I haven't been new to the former since 2004, and the latter since God knows when._

_Warnings: This fic is long. Each chapter is at least 10K words and one is 34K. The creek doesn't really happen until for a very long time, with the focus more on Craig as an individual than the pairing itself. This is in Craig's POV and I write him like an annoying asshole. A lot of this was inspired by my romantic history from high school (I am a girl. This is inspired by the romantic history of a high school female. Please take that into account.) This story is largely slice-of-life. This is an in-progress chapter fic whose plots and events are constantly changing, so there are inconsistencies and nothing, nothing about it is finalized or perfect. _

_if any of these things don't appeal to you, please don't read this._

_ thanks, and happy reading! :)_

* * *

Once in awhile I wish that I could see my life—and live my life, and even tell people about my life, as I'm doing right now—just like a Quentin Tarantino film. You know, _backwards_. Even the middle will do. It's confusing to watch unfold, yes, but at least you know what's coming before it roundhouse kicks you in the face.

I say "once in awhile" because sometimes those little surprises I get thrown are actually kind of delightful, like a birthday party or the presents dad would bring back from business trips. I also say "once in awhile" with as much bittersweetness as possible because we all very well know that there's no way to just jump into the future like that. Even reliving the past is something you just barely coast over.

…I mean, I _could_ tell it all to you like that, backwards or middlewards or what have you. _In media res_. But I didn't get that luxury, and you won't either.

So, as life goes, let's start at the beginning. No, I'm not going to give you any unsavory details of my birth—we're not going _that_ far back. But before we can start at the beginning, we do have to go back a little further, just for a second, enough so you understand the type of storyteller you're dealing with here. I need to start, in as much brevity as they deserve, with Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick.

That's right: years before any of the events of this story take place, those four bastards already had a hand in tainting my life.

It's no secret: I hate Stan and his friends-I _really_ do. And it's no secret because I make sure everyone knows it as often and as vocally as possible. I've spent so much time trying to forget the stupid things they put me through that, what with the shoddy memory I have to begin with, I've ended up forgetting what little _normal_ stuff I did as kid. Yeah, they're assholes, they're dicks, they're all sorts of insulting body parts-but I got to hand it to those douchebags, they really helped me find myself in my skin.

You see, when we were kids, all that bullshit they made everyone go through, all their crazy schemes and wacky adventures, they all made me realize several facets about myself—I hated doing a lot of things, and I was perfectly content doing nothing.

Everyone thinks I'm enormously boring. I know; I've heard the talk. And it's okay that they say those things, because everyone can go fuck themselves. I, for one, love my boring life. I love my boring _nothing_, where the most I have to look forward to every day is watching Red Racer when I get home from school or feeding my guinea pig or doing my goddamn laundry.

I know I sound like a huge loser here, and don't get me wrong; I don't just sit at home all day watching wallpaper grow or grass dry or however the goddamn saying goes. My friends and I go to the movies and my parents take me on vacation outside of Colorado sometimes and I take the bus to Denver when there are film festivals in town. I _do_ shit, but I just do normal boring shit that doesn't require any emotional strain or effort. Hell, what's so special about going out of my way to punch a hole in the ozone layer of my comfort zone and inviting in a bunch of unnecessary bullshit? With an empty fishbowl and some creative noises, eight-year-old me had all the adventures in the world sitting in my backyard playing pretend spaceman.

So when Clyde says, "hey Craig, wanna go explore an old abandoned building?", I say, "if you want to fall through some rickety floor boards and get gutted by a hobo, be my guest, but count me out." When Token wants to take us with him on vacation to the Amazon, I tell him the humidity is gross and they've got snakes the size of cars. When Eric Cartman comes to my door asking me if I want to double my money in one afternoon, I slam the door in his face, go upstairs, open the window above my doorstep, and pour a bucket of water on him. Living in South Park is bad enough without all that extra stuff that could get us killed or in trouble.

I'm not scared. I'm not lame. It's just not worth it. I don't know how to have fun? Okay. Fine. I have enough of my own brand of fun right where I am, nice and boring, with my own imagination, goddammit.

What's great is that just as I began to outgrow my make-believe games as a kid, the most beautiful prospect of being a filmmaker walked into my life and graciously permitted me to continue residing in the comforts of my boring little world. Let me tell you, it's like playing pretend _professionally_. I actually realized how much I liked this shit because of Stan and company, as if they don't invade my life enough as it is. It started in the fourth grade, with me wanting to one-up them and expose their idiocy by creating a TV show that was better than theirs via little to no effort on my part (like that was so hard; I'm surprised those guys can dress themselves in the morning). Being behind a video camera, I found, even if it was just using a wide-angle lens to film my neighbor's beagle in a funny hat, was _beyond_ addicting. In the past seven years, I've went from dogs in newsboy caps to, these days, trying to capture the complex psyche of a teenage boy who doesn't know if he truly exists (from my latest work; my best friend Token agreed to star in it, even though he thought the script was trash, but that just shows what he knows).

But the point is not that I love being an aspiring filmmaker, it's _why_ I love being an aspiring filmmaker. Besides making movies being totally sweet in of itself, one of the best things about this stuff is that it saves me from both feeling like an antisocial loser devoid of a life _and_ having to actually do anything. It enables me to have a "healthy and creative hobby" and play pretend _without_ even playing. I get to enjoy the world and a plethora of life experiences I never do otherwise _without lifting so much as a finger_. I just sit back, think it up, and then watch it all happen.

Basically, let other people do the living for me.

That's really me in a nutshell, and I wasn't expecting that to change any time soon.

It's funny, though; when I look back, the irony of such a thought is kind of delicious. Like a sumptuous hunk of meat, or something. _That_ kind of delicious.

So. Now that we got all _that_ out of the way, let's get this started. And I know just the perfect place to do it.

* * *

During spring break of my junior year at high school, I got my first job. That's right: _first_, I said. It's not that I never wanted to make money _before_ that time; it's just, well, that I didn't really _care_. Dad thought I was still qualified to receive allowance for doing nothing short of everyday chores, so what kind of dumbass would I be to stop taking advantage of that? It's like I was getting paid twenty bucks every two weeks to be this guy's son, and, let's be honest, I really should have been earning more than that.

But before I get ahead of myself, let's backtrack a bit. I'll admit, though: how I came to be working part-time at Mr. Johnson's local grocer is background info so long and cliché it's almost boring. Normally I wouldn't even bother telling it, but the rest of the story just wouldn't be the same without it, so hear me out.

It starts with the fact that one of my best friends, Clyde Donovan, is a fucking horndog and needs to learn to prioritize with his brain, not his dick. This wasn't news to me, mind you. I mean, Clyde's a big goofy dork and I love the guy...when he's _not_ prattling on about girls and how he wants to sleep with them and how many he's gotten numbers from and _especially_ when he whines about getting rejected. With him, it gets old so fast it could set world records. And let me tell you something about Clyde that really speaks volumes of his character: the kid not only _had_ porno mags in the fourth grade, but he'd categorized his 400+ collection alphabetically, by date, _and_ favoritism, and had them expertly stashed in a compartment under his bed that you couldn't open unless you tugged on the string attached to the door a certain way. Look, we'd all _seen_ porn when we were nine-years-old, but if any of us _owned_ any that didn't belong to our parents, it was one or two issues and we certainly didn't care _that_ much about them.

Anyway, so, long story short: Clyde's a horny bastard, but I already knew that. When we were playing _Call of Duty 4_ on Token's Xbox 360 the Monday before spring break junior year, however, Clyde managed to _confirm_ that, well, times had not changed in the past seven years.

It had started innocently enough.

"So, I was thinking about asking Red to junior prom, guys," Clyde had said, and it was really random, too. We weren't even talking about anything before he said it, we'd been five minutes into a new round, and I think what we _were_ talking about, like, ten minutes ago was something along the lines of which 'N Sync member we'd all go gay for.

Token and I were silent after Clyde had spoken. It wasn't that we honestly cared, though, more that it wasn't important enough for me to interrupt tossing a grenade at Token's hiding spot behind a decrepit building as he shot at me with his AK-47. For the record, I ended up killing him.

"Why _Red_?" Token finally bothered to ask as he waited for his character to respawn.

Here's where it stopped being so innocent.

"Because, dude," Clyde said, his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth as he half-concentrated on the game. "You _know_ guys always get laid when they take a girl to a dance, and I heard she's totally great in the sack."

I had been winning for the past ten minutes, but when Clyde said that, I accidentally pressed my right trigger, shot a rocket into a nearby wall, consequently killed myself, and allowed Token to take the lead. I would've flipped my shit at this point (brutalizing my friends at video games is very important to me) if I wasn't too fixated on what Clyde had just said to even say anything myself.

"Who told you that?" Token demanded, sounding faintly annoyed.

"Kenny McCormick!" Clyde answered, sounding way too cheerful and bubbly for the stuff coming out of his mouth. "And you know it's legit with Kenny. He's done, like, _everyone_."

Token scowled at that, but said nothing further. He _would _be mad. Guy's had a crush on Red since the sixth grade. The only reason he didn't care when Clyde mentioned asking her to prom in the first place is because Token is the greatest best friend in the entire world. It was only when Clyde introduced his ulterior motives that Token gave a shit. Let Clyde the Perv talk about boning any girl he wanted to, but the minute you drag Red into this, Token suddenly has to control his inner Hulk. You couldn't really blame Clyde too much for being tactless about this particular girl, though, because I was the only one who Token had told about the crush.

Anyway, even with Clyde making an ass of himself, Token still valued him as his friend just a little more than choosing to start an argument, so he kept quiet. That left the blunt insults to me, but, then again, that had always been my self-appointed job.

"You are some kind of dumb shit, you know that?" I sighed, shaking my head. I picked up my controller from where I had dropped it in my internal bitchfit from earlier and started playing again. "Kenny makes stuff up all the time. He hasn't done_ 'everyone'_ and Red is a bit classier than that poor asshole anyway."

"Yeah, dude, and she's pretty tough," Token added defensively. "I heard she gave Jason Miller a black eye for trying to get to second base with her. She'd murder you if you pull anything like that—Hey, aw, no!"

I had shot him while he was talking.

"Oh, you guys!" Clyde chortled—yes, _chortled, _like what we were saying was the silliest fucking thing in the world. "I love that you worry about me, but I'll be fine! In fact, I'm more than fine; I'm like the hottest thing at school right now. I turned Bebe Stevens down last Thursday, did you know?"

No one wants to explicitly embarrass their best friend (that, and detailing here how much we ripped on him would take too long) so let's just say that this comment from Clyde spurned about ten minutes of Token and I bagging on him about how Bebe turned _him_ down and how he'd cream himself for ten minutes with just her red sweater. He could only blush and stubbornly persist something about how Bebe was old news: "been there, done that".

Also, I killed Clyde and Token seven times, while they got me twice.

Eventually we got here:

"I'll show you guys. Watch, I'll make Red's fucking _week_ and ask her tomorrow."

Our game finished ten seconds later (with me as the victor), and by the time eight o'clock Monday morning rolled around, I had forgotten we'd even had this conversation. The last thing I cared about right now was whether or not Clyde was going to get a date to a stupid dance and then fuck her afterward. One, I already knew he wasn't going to do either of those things; two, anything even remotely related to dances or girls or Clyde's problems makes the top five list of things I enjoy thinking about the least; and three, I had problems of my own.

So, that movie I mentioned earlier, the one I wrote and directed about the kid who was struggling with his place in reality, the one Token starred in and quite lovingly continues to remark to me as being "one whopper of a shitty idea"? Yeah, that was the last project I had worked on and that was over nine months ago. _Nine_. I'd never gone that long without making a movie, even a little one. It was weird and it was unpleasant. I'd also had a long-term goal (whose term was getting shorter and shorter) of applying to some top-notch film school next year with a kickass portfolio, so this hiatus really wasn't helping my cause.

I used to carry my video camera around with me in my backpack so I could capture anything I found interesting and then hopefully use it for something later, but I realized that this was an invitation for theft, which I honestly wouldn't have put past the assholes at this school. Then I started bringing a notebook everywhere specifically for jotting down ideas as they came to me, but for some reason, inspiration was taking its sweet fucking time. I spent every waking moment where my mind wasn't occupied with anything else thinking of something engaging to make a movie about, so I sure as hell had no time for Clyde and how clueless he was.

Eight o'clock shows up, though, and turns out Clyde did end up asking Red. I was at my locker while they were about ten rows away at hers, and I saw it all happen. Clyde cornered her, attempting to be suave while she appeared hugely confused, like an unsuspecting rodent being circled by a hungry (or, in this case, horny) falcon. His voice carried over to where I stood, and I distinctly heard his winner of an opening line: "Hey, baby, you tired? Because you've been running through my mind _all day_."

Chuckling, I nonchalantly shut my locker and walked to first period.

I had hoped that, after the aforementioned rodent-falcon scene from this morning, we were done with this whole stupid fiasco and could move on with our lives. Unfortunately, while I sat idly and innocently trying to tug open a bag of baby carrots during lunch, I watched in grave irritation as Clyde stalked over from what-the-hell-ever direction, looking like someone pissed in his soda. I assumed the worst and attempted to run while I could.

He caught me before I was halfway out of my seat, though, and, sighing _really_ loudly, I was forced to slide back into my chair and pray God would have mercy on me for the next twenty minutes of whining.

"You-!" was all he could say, which was fine. It was all I needed to hear to know exactly what was going on. Plus, the less of his bitching I had to hear, the better.

"Did she reject you, buddy?" I relented, glancing at him with half a smirk.

"You _knew_ this was going to happen!"

"Calm down, tiger. I'm not _psychic, _just intuitive. What'd she say, exactly?"

He folded his arms, looking extra cross. "Oh, wouldn't _you_ like to know…"

No, truthfully, I really wouldn't, but caring seemed to come with the whole "friendship" package, so I feigned some interest. Luckily, Token walked up right about here, so I didn't have to suffer alone.

"Did Clyde get rejected?" he asked curiously, though I'm sure he knew right off the bat as well as I did. Clyde doesn't just stand around seething unless some unnecessarily-blown-out-of-proportion "disaster" occurs.

"See? Token's intuitive, too."

"Hey, Craig, buddy, _shut up," _Clyde growled. "For your guys' information, I did _not_ get rejected."

I balanced my elbow upon the lunch table and leaned my cheek against my open palm, watching Clyde in amusement. "Tell me, did she seem at all put off _as _you put the moves on her?"

Clyde was silent for a moment, looking-I kid you not-_honestly_ confused. "She did. I even used these really kickass pick-up lines I got on the internet. I don't know _why _they didn't work…"

One could only wonder.

Unfortunately, he seemed to remember that he was pissed at _me_ for whatever reason and got right back to it. "Yeah, and then she went on to say that she already had a guy in mind to ask. Wonder who it could be, _Craig?_"

I groaned loudly, hands instantly flying to grip my temples in frustration. It seemed like every consecutive thing Clyde said kept turning into the last thing I wanted to hear, but this one definitely took the cake.

"God, don't tell me she wants to ask me."

I felt lucky knowing that Clyde's eyes couldn't shoot lasers because I'd probably have died quite early into this conversation. He continued to seethe as violently as he could possibly muster instead, which seemed like an adequate response to what I had asked him, seeing as how I was beginning to feel the same way.

Token, once again being the most sickeningly sweetheart of a bro any guy could ask for, appeared not to share our sentiments. On the contrary, he looked downright cheerful. "She's totally into you, man. Any guy would kill to be with her, so do us all a favor and take advantage of that."

I don't know whom he was referring to when he said "us all", but I know for a fact that this entire situation benefitted me in the very least. I did not want to go to this dance or _any_ dances for that matter. They're expensive. They're a waste of time. The music sucks, and I can't dance anyway. The people I'd have to socialize with are the kids who actually like doing this crap (coincidentally the same group of kids I'd least like to be stuck in a high school gym with). And don't get me started on all the drama that comes out of the woodwork even _after_ the night is over. The whole school being like, "oh are you guys going out? How CUTE," or, "you look so GREAT TOGETHER. Blah blah blah _blah!_" and I never get to hear the end of it.

I wish I could say I was overreacting, except this happened to me during Sadie Hawkins freshman year (y'know, the same year where you make mistakes like this that you try to never repeat again in the following three years). What's even worse is that this is the _same girl_, which means my obvious option of turning her down really isn't an option at all. If Red's going to ask me to that godforsaken dance, I just…I _can't_ say no. If Eric Fatass Cartman can walk all over me when it comes to his get-rich-quick schemes, imagine how much harder a time I have when a cute girl's emotions are on the line. And, God, if I say yes, I'm going to have to go and it's going to suck. You'd think suffering through one evening wouldn't be so bad, but if she still wants to go out with me (as she made quite vocally apparent the first time around), I'm going to have one hell of a time getting out of it.

It's just going to be one never-ending nightmare after another. Just the thought was making me nauseous.

"_Christ, _are you kidding me?" I moaned.

Clyde suddenly slammed his fist on the table, making both Token and I jump. "You are _not_ allowed to say no, you woman-stealing bastard! I did not bust my ass getting rejected by the girl who's going to get rejected by you! That is crap."

"What, you _don't_ wanna go with her?" Token looked at me like I was crazy. "Red's hot, why not?"

"If she's so hot, why don't _you_ ask her?" I demanded, aggravated.

"Dude, I would, but it sounds like she's pretty sold on your scrawny ass." Which was bullshit. Token's pretty confident about most things, but when it comes to Red, he's pathetically shy. He turns into a stuttering mass of stupid just being in the same room with the girl.

"Do you want people thinking you're gay?" Clyde suddenly interrupted. "They're gonna think you're gay, y'know, if you don't say yes. More importantly, they're gonna think _I'm_ gay if I got rejected by the girl who got rejected by a gay kid."

"Your logic in that train of thought was almost as astounding as the blatant homophobia," Token mumbled. He turned to me again. "You really don't want to? Why can't you just say no?"

"I'm a goddamn pushover when it comes to this shit, you know that."

"Just face it, then, dude," he declared, putting a hand on my shoulder, "she wants _you_. Take it like a man."

Then Clyde, who, as of a minute ago, had been staring fixedly across the room, suddenly declared, "Hey, Heidi is totally checking me out, you guys. You think she'll say yes if I ask her to prom after seventh period?"

Jesus, this kid moves fast.

"I thought you were mad at me," I said plainly, staring at him.

Clyde waved his hand dismissively. "Water under the bridge. I've got a good feeling about this one."

"Does this mean your pride isn't on the line anymore if I say no?"

"No-fucking-way, dude! Now we can double-date!"

After that, Token and Clyde (now hugely invested in me going to this stupid dance) began discussing places Clyde and I could takes the dates we didn't even have yet for dinner the night of. I was then forced to sit, head in palm, and listen to these traitors plot my demise for another five minutes.

Fortunately (or _un_fortunately, depending on whose side you're on), I reflectively remembered that I'd blown the last of my money on repairing my video camera, as well as a new movie-editing program for my computer and other miscellaneous equipment, last Saturday. It's not like I planned to be broke just in time for this crisis, but if I had known last week that some girl was going to ask me to prom in a few days, I would have splurged _more_.

I told the boys all of this, and I figured I had finally weaseled my way out of this horrible situation, even when Token retorted with, "dude, even Kenny 'I eat cold waffles for dinner every night' McCormick somehow managed to save up for a ticket." I didn't care how many poor kids were able to save enough money for this dance; that wasn't going to change how expensive it was going to be. Most importantly enough, it's not like I simply had no money in my wallet: I'd just spent _four hundred dollars_.

Best four hundred dollars I've ever spent, though, if I do say so myself, even if it _did_ mean I had to get a two-month advance on my allowance and essentially offer my dad my soul for the next summer. The first thing I did with my new junk was splice together a bunch of old clips I had of us pushing Clyde off this little bridge over the creek by Stark's Pond (which, I might add, is how I broke the camera in the first place). I was amazed at how much footage I had stored of that, and it made a real knee-slapper of a three-minute montage when placed against the Benny Hill theme.

Clyde was not having any of my excuses, though, apparently. "You can get a job! Prom isn't for another month and a half."

"Yeah, about time you got one," Token added.

"I can hook you up!" Clyde continued excitedly.

"I'm not getting a job just so I can go to something I _don't_ want to go to-"

That was when I thought about it, all of it: why I didn't want to go to this stupid dance, why I _couldn't_, why I didn't even want to be _thinking_ about any of this in the first place. Then I thought about the prospect of having a job and why I had never had one. The joys of the almighty dollar aside, a job meant I would have to interact with a bunch of people I probably didn't like. I would have to take orders from some cranky old asshole and wake up early and stay late doing shit I didn't even know how to do and most likely didn't want to do. Talk about punching holes in comfort zones; this was starting to sound almost as unappealing as going to the dance in the first place. I was supposed to be working on my next movie, not dealing with all this crap.

That's when I got the most brilliant idea. It wasn't even so much that _I_ got the idea as the idea itself swung a sack full of bricks in my face.

"…A job. That's it."

Token and Clyde exchanged glances at this, but I was too busy being deliriously excited to alleviate their confusion. In fact, that I suddenly sounded so excited was probably what made them confused in the first place. Few things excite me, and the way I physically expressed this foreign emotion was actually pretty awkward: a fraction higher of a pitch in my tone and (as I've been told) this creepy twinkle in my eye. Once in a blue moon I even smile in a way that _isn't_ patronizing and sarcastic.

"Clyde, you said you'd get me one, right? You work at a grocery store?" I demanded, feeling anxious even as I spoke the words. When he slowly nodded, I cracked one of those weird genuinely pleased smiles. "Perfect…"

It seemed like the two had shared a telepathic rock-paper-scissors game in that look a second ago, to see who would be brave enough to ask me what the hell was going on, because Token had to nudge a nervously confused Clyde before the kid said anything. "So you'll take it then?"

"Yup."

"And you'll go with Red to the prom…?"

"Nope."

As I said this and watched my two friends take a minute to process what had just happened, the bell for sixth period rang, bringing with it a resounding scrapping of chairs, rattling of trays, and amplified chatter of teenagers all around the room. With that, I shot up from my seat, grabbing my tray of untouched food and tossing it (tray and all) in the trash, before I bolted out the cafeteria doors. I was on a mission and first things first: I didn't need anything (or anyone) distracting me.

About five minutes after I'd left the cafeteria, I found Red at her locker, supposedly changing out her books but really fixing her makeup. I strolled in her direction, pretending as if I was going to pass her but making sure to put myself directly in her line of sight as I did.

Just as planned, she caught me walking behind her in the reflection of her mirror. I watched the look of surprised delight cross her face before she spun around, slamming her locker shut in the process and reaching out to tug on the sleeve of my jacket.

"Craig! Can I ask you something?" she asked. I said nothing as I allowed her to guide me by my sleeve away from the middle of the hall, but silence was typical behavior of mine so she didn't appear to mind.

She released me when we got to her locker, tucking hair behind her ear before hiding her hands behind her back in a posture that I guess was supposed to be innocent. I also noted that she was several inches shorter than me; if I was a normal guy I'd probably find this adorable, but unfortunately for her, I was still Craig.

"I was talking to Clyde this morning about junior prom and it reminded me that, even though it's all the way at the end of May, it _is_ coming up, and I don't want the person I _actually_ want to go with to get asked before it's too late!"

Ouch. Sorry, Clyde.

"Okay."

"So…are _you_ going?" she asked sweetly. I found it a bit obnoxious that she didn't just get to the point, but whatever. I played along so it didn't feel like I just came here with the intent of rejecting her.

"No."

This made her smile. "Well, do you _want_ to?"

"…I'm pretty sure I just said I'm not going."

Then she giggled, for God's sake, and I was almost afraid my guilt would force me to change my mind. "No, I meant with _me_!"

Bingo.

I sighed, crossing my arms and leaning against the lockers. She could already sense that this was not going according to plan, and her face faltered. "Look," I started, glancing sideways at her. "It's nothing against _you_, honestly. I just don't want to go. I think dances are kind of lame."

Red was silent after that, and I made myself look away because, God help me, if her eyes showed so much as a hint of moisture, I was going to flip my shit. I quickly continued talking. "You know what, though, you really don't want to go with me."

"But…" I heard her say, and thankfully there wasn't a trace of a sob anywhere in there. "You're really cute and smart and…"

"Boring. You know who's really cute and smart and actually fun, though?" I risked making eye contact (no tears, though, thank God) and gave her a genuine grin. "Token. He can play bass guitar and do magic tricks, too. And he doesn't have a date! And, best part, he was _just_ telling me today that you have gorgeous eyes and a breathtaking smile and he thinks your laugh is cute." That last part was a lie: he didn't tell me that today, he told me that last week and the week before and every week before that, it felt like. Oh, and he told me it yesterday after Clyde went home after our video game. He'd probably tell me this again today anyway, so I guess it was only half a lie.

"Yeah?" she said, brightening noticeably.

"Yup. And I can guarantee you that if you ask him right now, he will most definitely not be an asshole and say no." I paused. "Also, if anyone asks, _you_ turned _me_ down." If I was doing Token a favor, I might as well do Clyde one too.

She smiled distantly. "Well, thanks, Craig. I think I will ask him." She turned back to her locker, grabbed a book, and shut it. I shifted to let her pass as she began to move in my direction, but instead of walking by, she pulled her arm back and socked me in the arm.

I'm not going to lie, that actually hurt like hell. I pulled back in alarm, gripping the spot and rubbing at it tenderly while staring at her like she was batshit insane, which I wouldn't have been too surprised to discover.

"No offense, but I wasn't going to cry, dumbass, not over some boy," she said before sauntering past me. "See you in history."

* * *

Long, _long_ story short, I ended up explaining my whole plan to Clyde and Token on the bus after school. Since Red had managed to ask Token to prom at whatever time they had ran into each that day, he was happy enough not caring why I did _anything. _Even Clyde, who had used the same stupid pick-up line on Heidi, somehow landed a date. So _that_, combined with the fact that he still had a buddy in Token to double date with, meant he wasn't peeved in the slightest.

Clyde had to go to work after we reached the bus stop, and he promised to talk to his boss about me when he got there. Later that night, as I was half-doing my homework, half-practicing drawing old people on my homework paper, my younger sister Beatrix kicked the door of my room open, toting Clyde on the house phone in her right hand. I think I caught her saying something like, "I've been yelling at you to get the phone for _three minutes, _you deaf idiot," as I shoved her out of my room, but it all sounds like gibberish coming out of that little gremlin. Clyde then kindly informed me that his boss wanted to meet me tomorrow after school.

Before I knew it, it was a week and a half later on Friday, April the ninth, the first day of spring break, and I was standing in the middle of Johnson's Grocer donning a macaroni-colored smock and a nametag inviting people to approach me and ask what aisle had the pork rinds or RC cola. I had a dirty mop gripped in my right fist and a bout of optimism swelling in my chest as I surveyed the store before me: the rows of food-stocked shelves, the Campbell's soup can display, the flickering yellow lights above, the scuffed linoleum. Despite my pessimism toward the idea of a job, I had good feelings about this place.

For someone native to a small town I didn't know much about anyone, let alone Mr. Johnson. It was probably because I was such a big recluse, but who can tell, really. The extent of my knowledge of this man was that he lived two houses from where my elementary school's old cafeteria chef used to live and really liked to go jogging in the same blue tracksuit at four in the morning every day. But the store he ran on the corner at the end of South Park's Main Street was pretty legit; a cute, small grocery business that succeeded in keeping me from feeling like a sleezy tool. All I had to do was bag groceries for old ladies and mop up the same clean spot about five times a day, and I got paid $8.50 an hour, which seemed reasonable enough. All this extra cash would come in handy later down the line; I _did_ need a new tripod, after all.

And the best part of all was how this factored into my new movie. I don't know why I never tried fishing for inspiration in an _un_familiar situation like getting a job, but, the potential this particular little godsend of a gig had in producing my next big hit was _endless_. A documentary, a mocumentary, a tragic romance, a apocalyptic horror, a slice-of-life comedy, a psychological action-thriller—I could already see it all from behind my cash register, the store coming to life through my imagination's eye in ways the milling customers had _no_ idea they were a part of.

It was beautiful. Nothing was going to stand in my way now. _Nothing_ was going to detract me from my vision. All I had to do was _live_ and my muse would hit me before I knew it.

I just had no idea how hard.


	2. Complication

My parents apparently failed to let me know we were going on vacation for my spring break. Either that, or I _forgot_ they told me, anyway. It might be safer to bet your money on the latter, considering, funnily enough, I forgot to tell _them_ I had gotten a job. We all caught each other up to speed at dinner Friday, the night before we were meant to leave, when my dad, between mouthfuls of meatloaf, randomly bellowed, "so, son, you got your bags packed yet?" to which I was forced to reply in utter confusion, "…uh, bags?"

You'd think I'd have noticed all the suitcases around the house and the missing toiletry-type things from the bathroom this past week, but I honestly hadn't.

Thankfully, only my mom was annoyed to hear that I could not join family Tucker on its road trip excursion to the exotic land of Wisconsin to visit relatives. She started bitching something about, "you haven't seen your Uncle Willy in _years_; he misses you kids!" which I highly doubt, considering he can never remember my goddamn name whenever I do see him. The last time I bumped into the man was at our family reunion three years ago, and he kept calling me either Shawn (which is my cousin's name) or Harold (which isn't anyone's name) and asking me about how baseball was going, when I haven't played a sport since the fourth grade.

Dad, on the other hand, was too baffled by the fact that I _had_ a job to care whether or not I was coming. He kept looking at me incredulously during dinner, like any second I would suddenly punch him on the arm and be like, "just fuckin' with ya, pop!" He also kept asking variations of, "a _real_ job son? You're not just making crap up so you can stay home and smoke crack with your friends or nothin'?" Once I finally managed to convince him that I did, in fact, have a job that had nothing to do with selling illegal substances to the other kids at school, he seemed relieved on several accounts. For one thing, supposedly I would learn something about responsibility and the value of a dollar or some stupid crap like that.

He also realized that if _I_ had to stay home, then my sister Beatrix might as well stay home, too.

"What's the use in bringing the girl along?" he reasoned. "She'll be bored out of her mind without her brother around."

I'm not quite sure how he figured that, considering that when she and I aren't vocally and mercilessly tearing each other to shreds, we're ignoring the other's existence. Either way, the news of my newfound employment turned from being a detriment to their plans to a golden opportunity for my parents. Even mom stopped flipping everyone off long enough to see all the positives that dad excitedly prattled off about leaving not only one but both of their children at home.

My sister didn't appear to mind the arrangement either, since she was most likely just as ecstatic as I was at the prospect of sitting in a car with our parents for two days to visit the same people who gave us tooth paste and socks as birthday presents. When my mom confronted Bea about it, my sister responded, "I didn't even start packing," and flipped mom off while continuing to shovel corn in her mouth.

With my parents leaving both my sister and I behind, that meant two weeks of me stuck babysitting the child I'm convinced was actually dumped on our doorstep one night by a bridge troll as opposed to having come from the same uterus as I did.

(And yes, I said _two_ weeks. My parents usually made us take the next week off from school when they took us to visit the relatives. I still haven't quite figured out which was the lesser of the two evils.)

Despite this horrifying fact, I remained relatively apathetic toward the situation. I continued the rest of the meal in silence and went to bed without giving it much of a thought. It may have been that I was growing accustom to the little cretin, or, perhaps, that she was growing up to be less of a pain in the ass, so much so, at least, that hanging out with her for a few weeks didn't sound _too_ much like torture.

More likely, though, it was because the minute I went to bed I ended up forgetting this entire conversation ever happened. So when I staggered drowsily into the kitchen at six thirty the next morning, I was genuinely surprised to see my sister sitting at the dining table eating a bowl of Lucky Charms. It took me all the way from the doorway of the kitchen to turning around with the carton of orange juice from the fridge before I noticed her. In my bewilderment, I froze where I stood with the orange juice in my hand and a stupid look on my face. I also failed to note that I remained in front of the open refrigerator wearing only my boxers and my hat.

"What are you doing here," I slurred, my words coming out as more of a statement than a question in my half-asleep, half-stunned state.

"Jeez, were you dropped on your head?" she mumbled around another spoonful of rainbow diabetes. "And can you put on some goddamn pants or a shirt for chrissakes?"

The sound of her voice recalled images of a troll leaving a baby in a basket in front of our door one cold winter evening and _then_ I remembered last night's conversation. It also reminded me that the fridge was cold on my bare chest and legs so I got my brain working enough to move forward, shut it, and commence pouring myself a glass of orange juice.

"You're being more of a hag than usual," I commented offhandedly. "Which begs the question: what kind of wacked-up nine-year-old wakes up at six thirty on a Saturday morning?"

Turning to lean against the counter as I nursed my juice, I watched her shrug in response. She flipped me the bird and grabbed her cereal spoon with the same hand in one fluid motion. "I couldn't get back to sleep when mom and dad argued their way to the car earlier this morning. Funny _you_ didn't hear it. You must sleep the same way you developed your personality: like a rock."

"That's a shame. Kind of like how the sound of your voice is making me too nauseous to eat anything."

"My bad. Your insults are about as stale as this cereal, by the way."

"Smartass."

"I can't tell, is it because you're boring or because you're unpleasant that you don't have a girlfriend?"

"Probably for the same reason you don't have any friends."

Honest to God, this is how the two of us converse when we're both around. We never physically hurt one another and we seldom shout, unless of course we're actually mad. These tiffs of ours are almost ritualistic, just slipping out of the two of us reflexively without any emotion or drive for either party toward the other. It's our own special sibling language, you could say, and even though we're quite good at stabbing at each other's deepest insecurities when it comes to the insults, I secretly _like_ doing this. It's like warm-up before I leave the house and have arguments with less worthy individuals. It's also how I bond with this kid, sadly enough. We wouldn't have any sort of relationship without it. I wouldn't admit this to Bea because that's just plain gay, but I think she secretly likes it too.

I downed my juice as she struggled to formulate a response to what I just said, and before she could finish snapping, "good thing you shut the fridge before your dick shriveled up and disappeared," I was already out of the room and trudging up the stairs. Fifteen minutes later, wherein I sat under the showerhead for thirteen of those minutes and changed in the remaining two, I bounded back down, fully dressed and slightly more awake. This time I found my sister in the living room watching cartoons on the TV.

"I've got my phone, so call me if anything goes wrong," I called over my back, slinging my smock across my shoulders as I made my way out. "And if you get kidnapped, leave a note saying who did it so I can send the guy a fruit basket."

"Have fun at work! Don't forget how worthless an asset to society you really are!"

* * *

In about another fifteen minutes, I found myself sitting on the hood of Mr. Johnson's delivery pickup truck watching Clyde struggle to unlock the store's front door. My house, I learned after training the day before, was conveniently close enough to walk to the store from. I assume that's how Clyde got there, but I have no idea really since he was there when I showed up. He was already at work getting the door open when I walked up, too, so I could only imagine how long he'd been wrestling with the thing. Considering we'd been sitting here trying for two minutes, and God knows how long Clyde was here before that, it was obvious why he was becoming visibly frustrated.

"You know what this place reminds me of?" I said idly, attempting to harmlessly pass the time as Clyde grunted and cursed in the background. "_What's Eating Gilbert Grape._ You ever seen it, dude?"

"You _made _me watch it," Clyde ground out, fidgeting with the keys in the lock so violently I thought he was going to break it.

"It's a good movie," I muttered. "Do you need help?"

"I need _you_ to shut up and stop relating everything to a goddamn movie for a second," he growled, now jiggling the lock so vehemently I could hear the bell above door tinkling from the inside.

Rolling my eyes at that comment, I hopped off the truck's hood, trudging over to Clyde and shoving him over forcibly with my right shoulder. I stole the key ring from his fingers and searched among the six or so keys in want of the right one. When I found it, I shoved it in the lock, turning it to the left and taking care to push it inward and upward as I did so. I listened as the sound of the lock clicked from the inside, then pushed easily against the door, watching it swing open as the bell above it jingled gratefully.

Clyde sent me a look that was a cross between, "I hate you, go play in traffic" and "thanks for making me look like an idiot," which I must admit was one of the looks of his that I most often times got the pleasure of seeing. I shrugged at him before shoving him inside ahead of me.

As soon as we'd both cleared the threshold, Clyde disappeared off somewhere, leaving me to gaze in slight wonder at the inside of the store. I'd already had two hours of training here yesterday (training having consisted of a thirty-minute run-through of what I was expected to do followed by two hours of Mr. Johnson's various war stories), so I'd already got a good look at the place. All the same, even though it gave me this reaction initially, it still managed to impress me. It was just so _quaint_ and charming.

I was optimistic walking home Friday night, glad to have eliminated the annoying task of going out and proactively _scavenging _for employment, let alone a place as chill as this. Maybe a grocery store wasn't one hundred percent the _most_ creative place to find inspiration, but I figured it would do for now.

Standing there and scanning it before me, though, as my eyes glazed over and my brain wandered, I rediscovered why this place originally psyched me out.

By the canned food aisle, I envisioned my male protagonist, a skinny brunette in a tattered Goodwill outfit, knocking down cans behind him as he attempted to evade a bizarre-looking serial killer. Down the baking aisle I watched as my main characters, two goofy college dropouts, discussed ways to smuggle drugs from Mexico in bags of flour. As I let my imagination guide me across the fronts of the aisles, I saw them packed with crowds of scared citizens, their shopping carts packed with food, all rushing to stock up for an impending nuclear war threat.

My brain never shut off to these visions. Don't get me wrong; I'm not some crazy person with freaky hallucinations that I believe are really there or anything. This is just how I saw _everything _as_: _potential inspiration.

Clyde showed up at some point amid my spacing out, a mop in one hand and a yellow bucket with wheels at his feet. I wouldn't have noticed he was there at all if he hadn't knocked my hat off my head (and my reverie along with it) as he came up behind me. I snatched it midair and shoved it back on with a scowl.

Clyde already had something for me to do, as I soon found out. Apparently I was supposed to mop up the entire store as quickly as I could so that it was completely clean before most of the people that day would show up.

Under normal circumstances I would have responded by telling him exactly what he could go ahead and do with that mop, but here in the store Clyde was actually my superior. He had earned the spot of store manager underneath Mr. Johnson from having worked for him for so long (since last year) and from normally being the only one who worked here at all. Johnson had originally intended to have one employee and himself working the store, but Clyde somehow convinced him that I would be a good asset. When Thompson found out neither of us were in school right now, he decided to leave the store completely in our hands most of the time, meaning that Clyde was the only person above me and I was the only person below him.

Still, I couldn't help seeing him as just Clyde and therefore see his ordering me around as unnatural and downright wrong.

"You want me to mop…the _whole_ store," I stated, gesturing widely at it.

He beamed as obnoxiously as his smiling usually is. "Yes I do. And please call me 'sir'."

Clyde, if you could not tell, quite enjoyed being able to tell me what to do when I couldn't do shit about it. Our typical relationship has him at the brunt of all of _my_ abuse (which I can't help, it's just so easy) so this right here was some kind of sick form of payback.

"Can I just punch you and we'll call it all even?"

"Not while we're in here, unless you don't want a job," he declared brightly, wielding the upper hand.

I considered this.

"Okay. After work, I'm going to sock you. Remind me or I'll forget. _Sir_." I reached out and jerked the mop out of his hand, smirking as I watched him flinch with my movement. Kicking the bucket ahead of me, I walked off toward the first aisle, leaving Clyde looking hugely annoyed behind me.

I started mopping around 7:30 and in about an hour and a half, at nine AM, I had made it through about four of the twelve aisles in the store. There was really no excuse for this, keeping in mind how small the store is and consequently how short the aisles are. It was just that I managed to get distracted in every aisle I walked down. I don't know if it was because my task was hideously boring or everything was just so much more interesting, but I kept stopping to pick up objects and read their nutritional labels or go through ingredients lists and try pronouncing all the chemicals in everything.

I learned quite a bit.

I had no idea what Clyde was doing, since I hadn't seen him in that entire hour and a half. I hoped to god that he was at least being productive, because if I was supposed to be running around doing this while he was reading magazines at the register, that punch I was going to give him after work was going to aim to knock some teeth out. I heard the occasional scuffling and shifting around over on the other side of the store so I assumed something more than sitting on his ass was going on over there.

Since neither of us knew what the other was up to, I figured he wouldn't notice how useless I was being. My latest endeavor, then, was a result of me randomly remembering that grocery stores usually had cereal aisles. When that thought struck me, I immediately dragged my mop and bucket over there (all the way from aisle five to aisle ten) so fast I spilled half my dirty water near the frozen section. I then commenced spending a good twenty minutes picking up different boxes and entertaining myself with the games on the backs of most.

This time I couldn't help it. I fucking love cereal. I've loved it since I was a kid, and its aisle had always been my favorite aisle to run around in at the grocery store. You know why? It's because I've been doing the whole cut-out-the-codes-on-the-flaps thing and sending them in and getting stuff since I was old enough to handle scissors. That's how I got my first amateur video camera, with an emphasis on _amateur_. I remember the picture and description were on the back of a box of Cookie Crisp, and they made it look and sound so beastly. When I got it in the mail, I discovered it was about the size of the palm of my hand and only recorded around five minutes of film, which meant you had to delete what you just recorded if you wanted to use it again. It was designed for six-year-olds, okay, but I hardly cared at the time. I still thought it was _so cool._

I was highly absorbed in solving a maze on the back of a box of Frosted Flakes when I finally heard from Clyde again.

"I have to pee!" he suddenly sang from somewhere in the store, the sound of his voice drifting as if he were moving across the aisles to the backroom as he spoke.

"Congratulations," I responded, loud enough for him to hear.

A loud irritated sigh arose near the back. "No, I mean, watch the store while I'm gone!"

"Roger."

"That means you have to help customers if they walk in, Craig. That involves _talking_ to them and being _nice_, are you sure you can handle that?"

I had resumed mopping after he'd given me the initial order, but when he added that last part I jerked to a stop, revulsion coursing through my body. Talking to people, let alone talking to them kindly, _also_ happened to be on that top five list of things I enjoyed doing the least. It's because I find most people to be either extremely annoying or extremely stupid, both of which make me extremely mad, and being subjected to those things and treating them with politeness is beyond my scope of comprehension.

I groaned, clearly not happy. "Just take your piss and hurry back already."

"Get me if you start to feel like bludgeoning anyone!" And he was gone.

I made a short prayer pleading that no one would walk in, and for the first few minutes I was pretty lucky. However, either Clyde wasn't really peeing or he had gotten distracted by something shiny on the way back, because he ended up taking a longer time than what made me feel comfortable. As time dragged on, I had a feeling my good fortune was wearing thin.

And I was right. As I had almost finished up actually mopping aisle ten, the tinkling of the door's bell alerted me to the presence of a customer. I was forced to turn my head, along with my attention, to the sound, where, to my utmost horror, I found that it was no ordinary customer, like a granny or some random person I didn't know. It was quite worse.

It was Kyle Broflovski.

I grit my teeth, willing myself to turn and dart farther into the aisle before he could spot me, but I was too late. He had seen me the minute he walked in, face splitting into a grin in recognition.

"Oh, hey, Craig!" That was Kyle for you: ever cheerful, even when I currently wore the dirtiest glare on my face. In his defense, I guess my "dirty glare" was just my normal face.

"Hello," I muttered reluctantly, keeping my response monosyllabic in hopes of killing any invitation for conversation that could possibly ensue.

Unfortunately, the guy completely misread my hello and ended up walking over. That was my mistake; I shouldn't have responded at all. As I watched him approach, I had to fight back the urge to say, "I'm sorry, I seem to have accidentally given you the impression that I actually wanted to talk to you." My second option was to walk away before he made it to me but the store was smaller and he was faster than my ability to think that plan up.

I noticed he had been glancing up and down every aisle he passed as he made his way over, and when he finally reached me, he asked, "dude, have you seen anybody who works here?" all while looking wildly over my shoulder as if I was hiding all the employees.

I sighed, throwing a look upward in what I hope was the kind of visible irritation that drove people away without saying a word. Here was the moment Clyde was talking about, that bitch, the part where I was actually supposed to _help_ people. I just wondered why, _of all people_, it had to be this asshole.

I uncrossed my arms (I hadn't even realized I'd crossed them, that's how annoyed I was) and revealed the tag on my chest.

Kyle, catching my movement, looked at me and saw the tag right away. He peered closer to read it and lit up instantly. "Oh. _You_ work here." He paused, comprehending. "You work here! Since when?"

"Since none of your damn business. Did you want something?"

Kyle was initially taken aback by my response, but he recovered quickly. "Right," he replied, grinding his teeth slightly. "No need to be a dick."

"Same to you."

"Why are you always trying to start something? I didn't even do anything to you! I was just trying to be nice!"

"If you really had wanted to be nice, you wouldn't have come over here and talked to me. Can I help you, then?"

"Whatever," he growled in defeat.

For some reason, out of him and the other three of his stupid friends, Kyle is the only one who tries too damn hard to be civil and genial to me, as if that's going to make me stop hating him. Cartman treats me like shit and we have a very stably unstable rivalry; Kenny is annoying just by being himself; and Stan at least has the common decency to hate me back and ignore me when we're in the same room so as to not invite reason for me to point out how huge of a pussy he is. Kyle, on the other hand, appears to be under the impression that he's some special snowflake in my snowstorm of hatred. The fact that he tries so hard is actually more detrimental to his cause than he would believe, if only because it's both irritating _and_ stupid. If I were to rank him and his friends based on whom I hate the most, Cartman would be the only one right above him.

He even asked me once _why_ I hated him so much and that somehow made it even worse.

"Do you guys carry Wheatie Bran?" he continued, clinging to something that would not incite me to say anything cruel.

I stared.

"…it's a cereal."

Apparently I had not exhausted all of my luck just yet, since that was the aisle I was in. All I had to do was find what he was looking for, and I hoped we stocked it because I didn't want to be standing around looking for it for ten minute while this noisy asshole stood nearby the entire time. That could only open up more blessed opportunities for him to speak to me.

"They're for my great-uncle," Kyle suddenly went onto say, as if he were reading my mind. "He starts his day off grumpy if he doesn't eat these for breakfast and mom forgot to pick them up at the store, and..."

I let out the most frustrated noise I could possibly muster before stomping off down the aisle, not letting him finish whatever the hell he was prattling on about. The fact that he felt the need to include that last series of unnecessary information meant he was making a second attempt at civil conversation, and there was probably more where that came from.

_God_, this seemed like the type of tactic his _mother _would advise him to do in order to befriend me. I can just see the talk those two must have had now, with Kyle whining to her, "mom, this kid at school keeps being an asshat to me, what should I do to keep myself from damaging my self esteem any further?" and her response being, "Oh, bubbala," or whatever the fuck she calls him, "just keep being nice to him, eventually he'll see what a sweetheart you are!"

"…he's in town, y'know. A bunch of my family is. My mom is having them all over to for my aunt's—"

He was _still talking_.

"Kyle, it's quite admirable that you think I would care, but it's also really idiotic, so please stop."

Any trace of composure he'd possessed in the last few minutes quickly vanished with a glower that could have blown up a freeway. "Goddammit, Craig! Stop being such a little shit!"

"Ughhh," I groaned, shoving past him to go look on the other side of the aisle. He continued to follow me, him and that bitchy shriek he inherited from his mom.

"—and all your rude comments are completely uncalled for! It just makes you look like a stupid bully, and you're going to learn no one likes hanging out with total assholes!"

Kyle's voice was giving me a headache. I reached for his box of crap (which I had found while he had been talking) and handed it to him, hoping he'd go away now. "Leave."

He snatched the box out of my hand, glaring still, and stomped off toward the register while I watched him apathetically. To my utmost delight, Clyde had returned from the restroom at some point, meaning I didn't have to ring up Kyle's purchases. When Kyle disappeared around the corner of the shelf, I heard Clyde greet him, followed by the ding of the register opening, Kyle complaining about my crappy service and some other shit, then the sweet, sweet sound of him slamming his way out of the store.

Satisfied, I turned to make my way back to my abandoned mop and bucket.

The weirdest thing happened, though.

When I faced the aisle again, I found myself…fascinated by the way it looked. I paused, rooted to the floor, my mind wandering and my eyes alight with intrigue. As with all my imaginative illusions, I began to see the aisle as if through a camera shot, one taken from the end and at an angle so that the aisle seemed to disappear the further away it stretched. In my mind's eye, a couple materialized in the middle of the aisle, holding hands, looking absolutely enamored with one another. The shot fades away then, though not completely. The walls of food and the shiny linoleum and the bright gaudy lights and even the clothes the couple are wearing fade away. Only the woman and the man remain, still smiling at one another, even as the setting they were once in becomes gradually replaced with a new one. Suddenly they're outside, in a big green field, rows of smiling individuals in white plastic chairs lined alongside the two to create a makeshift walkway down which they continue to glide, their hands still clasped. The woman is wearing a gown now, the man a tux, and as the sounds of a violin almost blur my perception of reality and imagination, I realize my protagonists are getting married.

What isn't weird is the fact that I pictured this; it happens all the time, remember? No, what's odd is _what_ exactly I pictured. This fluffy romantic stuff was not my area of expertise. It was strange that my subconscious would summon it.

Before I thought too much about this, my daydream was shattered, like a rock being thrown through a glass window.

"Craig!"

I shook my head, the illusion disappearing and my mind instantly forgetting about it. My first instinct was to ignore Clyde, but he'd actually moved from the register to place himself right in front of me, arms crossed over his chest and a disapproving frown on his face—and it wasn't exactly easy to just pretend that wasn't there.

"Craig," he repeated, adopting a stern tone that sounded downright ridiculous coming out of his face. "Apparently your customer service skills are a major fail."

"What the hell did I tell you about using fail as a noun?"

"Also, you suck at mopping," he continued, ignoring my comment, "so you're going to do the produce now."

"_Do_ the produce?"

"You need to inspect them all for bruises and blemishes."

I shrugged. It didn't sound too horrendous. Maybe I was just glad to be doing something other than mopping. "Okay, fine."

"_All_ of them. _Individually_."

"Yeah, whatever. Get out of my face, tubby," I mumbled, flipping him off and stalking off in favor of my new assignment.

"Call me sir!"

I didn't fully understand how much of a punishment inspecting the produce was apparently supposed to be, however, until about twenty minutes later when I found myself in the produce section staring at what must have been my fifteenth Red Delicious apple, examining it for imperfections. I had stared at so many already that they had all started to look the same and it was getting harder to find any problems with them. What was even worse was that, as I, in my ever growing disinterest, returned my current one to the pile, I realized I hadn't separated the ones I'd already done from the ones I hadn't.

I gave up on the apples very quickly after I chucked my last one to the ground and stomped on it.

I was by the bananas a while later, searching around for the bruised ones, when the bell above the door chimed. It had done that about three times in the past few minutes, and each time, like a reflex, my head would snap up to glance over at whoever had come in. The first time it was Butters' dad buying a tub of margarine (the pun was not lost on me, don't worry); the second time it was the old woman who always feeds the squirrels by Stark's Pond buying a loaf of bread; and the third time it was this group of loud junior high kids that ran around the store snickering obnoxiously at the stupidest shit and didn't buy anything. You can take a wild guess at which of these three I had the most fun being in the store with.

Anyway, so this fourth time, then, a woman walked in. She looked about the same age as my mom and was actually...quite good-looking. Y'know, for someone's _mom, _as I assumed she was. She had the looks of a mom that would motivate kids like Clyde or Kenny to hang out with her kid just so they could go to his house and ogle her. She certainly couldn't touch my mom in the looks department because, hell, my mother is a fucking beauty (and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, so what can you expect). But she was up there. Definitely someone's mother, but a hot mother nonetheless. I glanced at her a little longer than intended, partly out of amusement that I could be so easily swayed and partly just to study her. She wasn't skinny, like my mom, but curvy in a really comforting, that loving-mother sort of way where I could totally see her kid constantly wanting to hug her. Her hair was a short bob and caramel colored, her eyes, as far as I could tell, were a deeper toffee. She wore a turquoise dress and an apron to match and, toting a list in her hand, appeared to carry herself confidently.

It was kind of adorable, I had to admit.

The door opened one more time quickly behind her. It hadn't even closed, really; a hand had grabbed it about halfway before it connected with the frame, pushing it back open as a boy (as I soon discerned it to be) emerged from behind it. I deduced he was the son, but only because the extent of his basic facial structure that I could gather from my short-lived glance bore a striking resemblance to the woman. I would later suppose that perhaps his nose or ears might have been similar to his unknown father or something of that nature, I'm sure, but at the moment I paid him no further mind than noting how much he looked like his mom.

I did manage to catch a few more details before I lost interest, though. One was his hair; it was this bright lemon-custard yellow and really fucking messy. I remember an initial desire to attack him with a brush, which is really saying something, knowing I wake up every morning, run a hand through my _own_ hair and consider that presentable enough. The second thing I noticed was that he was so _fidgety_. Perhaps the confident stride of his mother had just put his own movements to shame, but he almost stumbled through the door, shuffled nervously about behind her, and had his hands all over himself, tugging at his oversized sweater collar and occasionally twisting through his hair.

He was weird, alright, and the pair of them together were even more abnormal. All the same, they were just some _people_, and I'd seen weirder folk in my own family. They were no more interesting than Butters's dad.

I watched the mother suddenly tear the list in half and hand one strip to her boy. "Go grab the fruits, okay son?" she said, handing him a basket after he had taken the paper from her.

He initially looked fearful and opened his mouth as if to convince her that what she'd just said was a bad idea. He paused, however, shut his lips, and nodded furiously.

That was my cue to stop caring about them and realign my focus to my own wellbeing. That twitchy kid was going to come over here, which would inevitably force me to potentially assist him in some way, and God forbid I actually do my job. Before he had even started making his way over, I had already spun around, speeding off in the opposite direction in order to hide before he could see me. I was in such a rush that my elbow collided with a mountain of pears, sending the one at the top bounding off into the next aisle.

Now I had an excuse to be running away.

As I crouched after the thing, I heard the awkward pattern of the kid's footsteps dragging along in the area I had just left. I then quickly made up my mind to head to the cereal aisle again to finish my Frosted Flakes maze and started heading in that direction.

That's when I heard it. The oddest little noise that I at first thought must have belonged to a loose rat in the store, but when it was accompanied by various "_rrg"_s and "_gah"_s, I was pretty sure it was human-made. I was so far from fathoming why or how this _kid_ could be making those sounds that I was mostly convinced it _couldn't_ be him, but those noises certainly weren't going on _before_ he walked in or even before he walked over here.

Thinking he was either choking or epileptic and having an episode, I gingerly retraced my steps, taking care to stop in the aisle next to the produce (it was baking). I wanted to be close enough to see what was going on, but not too close so that, given this was a false alarm, I couldn't be spotted and expected to actually do anything. There wasn't a wall between the shelf I stood in front of and the other side, so I pushed aside a box of yellow cake mix and stuck my head in the vacant spot, eyes zeroing in on the boy.

Fortunately, he wasn't dying, I guess. From my vantage point, he was at a fraction of an angle to me so that I saw mostly his back and little of his face, but I could definitely determine enough. He was standing by my half-inspected pile of apples, the handles of his basket clutched in his right hand while he continued to grab at his sweater nervously with the left. The noises were coming from him, I found out as I watched him grit his teeth or bite his lip, only to hear him simultaneously utter some indecipherable sound. I supposed at this point that they were just some weird tick, along with what appeared to be his habit of _twitching_, which I hadn't noticed before. He was like a humming vibrating thing standing over there by my apples.

Two things about this kid, however, managed to prevent me from completely losing interest and walking away, neither of which was the twitching or the sounds. Both of these things also, oddly enough, instilled a yearning to approach this boy, as well as maintain my distance for reasons that had nothing to do with my perpetual irritation with everyone.

The first was that, before I got a chance to spin around and leave, I saw the boy sharply snap his head left and right very suspiciously. His twitching, I perceived, suddenly dissolved away, and as I attempted to figure out what the hell that was about, I watched his vacant hand dart out and grab an apple. Then, instead of placing it into the basket hanging on his right arm, he shoved his hand deep into the pocket of his hoodie only to remove it a second later sans apple. This all happened in such a fast fluid motion that if I had blinked at the same time, I probably would have missed it taking place. He was twitching again the minute it was all over.

The idea that this scrawny mousy little blondie was actually doing what I thought he was doing was almost laughable, but there really was no way around it: unless our store baskets didn't suit his shopping preferences compared to his sweater pocket, the kid was _stealing_.

I briefly wondered if he and his mother were in on this shoplifting heist together; perhaps they were working two sides of the store and were planning to walk out with a bunch of our wares in their pockets. As much as this sounded like a really bitchin' plot point for a movie, I realized this was probably one of those few important moments where I was supposed to do something that would actually make some sort of a difference. I pulled my head out from between the cake mixes, striding quickly back to the produce section and feeling ready to tackle this guy if need be (but I really hoped it wouldn't come to that because that seemed like too much work).

That's when the second thing I noticed about this kid caused me freeze in my footsteps, halting where I had originally left from in the first place (by the bananas).

In the time it had taken me to get over here, he had moved to the section with the cantaloupe. At this new angle, his front was to me, and I consequently noticed about a billion things about him all at once. His shoes were untied. The sweater he was wearing was crumpled-looking, like it'd been sitting in a ball before being worn. It was also at least a size too big for him, making him look both skinnier and shorter than he already was. It also made it impossible to tell he was storing something in his pocket just by looking at it.

But his _face_…with its big eyes and long nose and furrowed concentrated brows and lips like he bit them all the time and lashes like a fucking chick—that's what got me, like a swift punch to the gut.

I _knew_ this guy. I knew I knew him, but…for the life of me I couldn't remember why or how or when or, most importantly, _who_ he was. I had never felt so frustrated with my shitty memory in my entire life, because I swore to God that this guy was someone I knew, but I couldn't put my finger on anything more than that.

The normal reaction would have been to approach him so as to solve this dilemma together, but I remembered again that he had just _stolen something_, and I figured the reaction a thief would take to an approaching employee would probably consist of running away. I also remembered that I had come over here to catch him for the act in the first place, but I was now more overcome with the fact that this son-of-a-bitch looked so fucking familiar that I no longer cared about the apple anymore. It was like a never-ending paradox where I wanted to and yet _couldn't_ start talking to this guy.

Since he hadn't seen me, I resolved to stay where I was with the full intention of observing him until I was satisfied.

Though my peripherals, I eyed him hovering over there by the cantaloupes, peering curiously over them. The amount of concentration his task demanded had managed to calm him down considerably, but he still managed to look the most scared shitless I'd ever seen anyone when picking out fruit. When he found one he liked, he picked it up and started squeezing it as cautiously as possible, as if handling a bomb.

When I decided that the corners of my eyes just weren't going to be enough, I forgot entirely about looking inconspicuous. I stared directly at him, watching carefully to see what would happen. I almost thought he was going to steal the cantaloupe, too.

The squeezing didn't last much longer; the fruit appeared to have passed that first test. The boy hesitated a moment before his next action, looking anxious and unsure. Shortly thereafter, unaware of my heavy gaze, he brought the fruit near to his face, gently eased his eyes shut, and inhaled slowly through his nostrils. I saw his shoulders heave broadly before gradually returning to their previous position and then rise once more as he inhaled a second time, this time more quickly. I noticed his twitching had reduced to a low occasional shiver, and a very strange feeling rolled around in the pit of my stomach.

I drew my breath in sharply at the feeling, but unfortunately, as subtle as I'd been hoping to be, my inhaling was a little too loud, a little too labored than intended. He heard it about as well as I had, and his eyelids fluttered open in surprise. He glanced across the way beneath his lashes, as his head was still bent over his cantaloupe.

He saw my eyes on him, and I caught his glance in my own. It was a very long two seconds after that, in which his brain seemed to process what was going on while my own worked fairly hard to think of something non-threatening to do that wouldn't scare him. The color began to drain from his face.

"Non-threatening" and myself were things that aren't often found within ten miles of one another, I soon realized, so I had to do the best I could. I smiled at the boy, and, while it wasn't much, it was probably more tame than I believed I was capable of.

I... _thought_ I had smiled, anyway. I only say this because seconds thereafter I was a bit surprised to see the look of absolute horror that managed to latch itself onto every corner of his face as a response to _whatever_ I did. You'd think I'd killed a small animal in front of him, for Christ's sake. I even went so far as to absentmindedly brush my fingers against my lips to make sure I had in fact just smiled. Realizing '_yeah, so I did'_ only caused said stupid little grin to falter immensely.

Before I could _swear_ I wasn't a registered sex offender or something, the blond kid dropped his cantaloupe—or more like _threw_ really, because he sure as hell wanted to get out of there as fast as possible-and skittered away, shrieking slightly as he did.

I stood motionless in the wake of whatever in God's name just happened, peering with all the confusion in the world at the spot he had been standing in just a moment ago. I had started to scratch curiously at my head beneath my hat when, now twitching for fuck's sake and ridiculously, too, the boy appeared again at the end of the aisle. This time, however, he wasn't alone; his hot mother was with him, her basket of shit balanced on her left arm while her scared shitless child clung to her right, holding on as if for dear life. He also appeared to be dragging her to the cash register, and probably would've bolted if they hadn't driven here together. I watched her give him the keys and tell him to wait in the car, all calmly and gently, and he did just that. I found it weird that she didn't seem to give a rat's ass that her kid was having a spastic episode over there next to her, or even that Clyde didn't appear to notice this.

Clyde did, however, ring the woman up quickly, as he was the one working the register and could sense her urgency. She thanked him and, composed as ever, exited the store behind her son.

It took me a moment before I had composed myself and come to terms with what just took place. I was still horribly confused, but no longer immobile in my bafflement. With a deep sense of dissatisfaction, I realized that I had neither caught my culprit nor figured out who he was, and now he was getting away. I felt like a huge idiot until I remembered Clyde was here too. Surely he wasn't as braindead as I constantly liked to tell him he was.

I marched forward swiftly only to see him at the register now reading a magazine.

"Clyde," I said.

"Hm?"

His passivity was alarming.

"What…just happened?"

Hearing the befuddlement in my voice moved him to lower his magazine and gaze up at me in concern. "What do you mean? I just rang someone up."

"No, I mean with that kid."

"What kid?"

I paused, feeling a sinking in my stomach. I hoped to God my brain hadn't just made up everything that transpired. "The kid that was just in here with his mom."

"There was a kid here?" The genuine perplexity on his face convinced me he wasn't fucking around.

"Were you sitting there reading that magazine this _whole time_?"

"Yeah, up until that lady was ready to check out. I didn't even notice when she came in. Did you catch her, by the way?" He grinned. "Talk about ho-o-ot. Almost as hot as your mom, buddy."

Under normal circumstances this comment would have earned him a middle finger and an ass-kicking, but there wasn't time for that. Well, there wasn't time for the ass-kicking anyway. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. So you didn't see any kid?"

"No, I must have missed him." He cocked an eyebrow at me curiously. "Why? He steal something?"

This was a joke, I guess, but all the same, I wasn't sure what to say to it. I felt compelled not to tell Clyde the truth, though, in case I really imagined that kid or, at the least, that his theft had taken place.

"He just seemed really familiar. I was wondering if you knew him."

"What'd he look like?"

I struggled to remember, my memory already failing me. "He had messy blond hair, a long nose, and green eyes. He was kinda twitchy, too. Short and scared-looking."

Clyde mulled over my description, licking the corner of his mouth and tapping his chin in concentration. "I don't know… That could be anyone. I've seen at least a few kids who look like that at the stoner table at school." He shrugged. "Sorry man."

I was silent at first, frustrated. Spring break meant I couldn't just go to school tomorrow and find out whom he was. This was going to kill me. Plus, I was still torn about telling Clyde about the theft. I almost told him right then and there, realizing it almost hardly mattered since neither of us knew who the guy was anyway.

"South Park is so small, though," Clyde continued, "so he might come back here. Maybe you'll run into him again."

He had a point. I changed my mind again and resolved to keep my mouth shut about the crime. If this guy did come back, I decided I would just confront him then. Until that happened, I figured it wouldn't make a difference if I remained silent.

"Hey, so I forgot to mention it earlier when Kyle was here since you were being punished," Clyde said suddenly as I began to walk away. "He invited us to go with him, Kenny, and Cartman to Stan's track and field meet next Saturday. You down? I think Token gets back from Hawaii that night so he probably can't go."

"Wait, what? _Me_, too?"

"Well, he told me to come and said I should bring anyone. But he specifically mentioned you. He was going to bring it up with you, but he told me you must have been storing a spare mop up your ass and asked me to relay the message instead."

God, Kyle, you weren't even here and you still managed to piss me off.

If anyone is keeping track now, I also hate sporting events. Almost as much as I hate Stan Marsh being a jock, and I hate _that_ almost as much as I hate Stan Marsh being Stan Marsh. Still, none of those things compare to my loathing of Kyle Broflovski and his persistence.

Don't worry, though. I _like_ things, too.

"What the hell is Stan doing having a track meet, anyway? Aren't we supposed to be on vacation?"

"Yeah, well, it's their first meet, I guess. That's why Kyle wants us to go; he wants to support him, or something, I dunno."

I breathed angrily through my nose. "What is up with that kid? Why does he keep inviting me to do crap with his friends when he knows I can't stand them?"

"He said you were going to say that, and that 'Craig needs to loosen up, that uptight little bitch.'" The last part was said as if he were reading it off a card, just so I would know they were Kyle's words and not his.

That didn't stop me from narrowing my eyes at Clyde and tightening my fist.

"Dude, you don't have to go or anything. No need to get all mad."

Oh, I _wasn't_ planning on going; he didn't have to worry about that. There was no way to respond to him without me wanting to hit the nearest living thing, though, and unfortunately it wasn't anywhere near closing time, so Clyde was not an option. Instead of doing that or even responding, I sighed for about the millionth time that day, and trudged off.

When I walked by the pile of apples a minute later, I noticed a vacant spot where I know for a fact I had placed an apple after it passed inspection. I picked up another one, inserted it into the spot, then went to go look for my mop and bucket.

* * *

The store closed around 8 PM later that night. The minute Clyde and I exited the place I immediately spun around and socked him in the shoulder so hard he fell back against the door. I watched the tears well in his eyes as he mumbled, "it didn't need to be so hard…"

I shrugged him off, waved, and made my way home.

When I walked through the door at around 8:15 I was greeted by the smell of burnt pizza. I found the box I remembered from the freezer laying on the counter near the stove; about three-fourths of the actual pie (looking black and crusty) sat in the middle of the table. I shook my head silently, opting to clean the mess later, and searched for my sister.

She was exactly where I'd left her: on the couch watching TV, except now she had a slice of pizza in her face.

"What's up, loser?" she said, not tearing her eyes away. "Have a good day?"

"I had a marvelous day," I muttered sarcastically. "Have you been sitting there since I left?"

"For your information, I went to my friend's house."

I glanced around, hands on my hips. "Well, I noticed the house is _not_ on fire. Way to go."

She hesitated. "…the pizza didn't taste very good."

"Of course it didn't. Admit you're hopeless without me, and I'll make you pancakes."

To my amazement, she actually _did_ say that, and rather eagerly, too. She was more desperate than I thought. It also probably helped that pancakes are the favorite meal of every person in this house.

Either way, in a short while we were both in the (now slightly cleaner) kitchen again. We each had a plate of pancakes in front of us (or, we _did_, anyway, before we'd both dove into them like a ravenous pack of hyenas).

As my sister stuffed her second-to-last pancake whole into her mouth, I found myself reflecting on everything that had happened to me today. The episode with that blond kid was still bothering me, and I don't know what came over me, but I suddenly blurted out, "can I tell you about my day?"

It probably felt as awkward for her to hear as it felt for me to say something to her that wasn't insulting in any manner. She actually lifted her head from hovering over her plate to look at me, as if making sure that I hadn't gotten up while she'd been eating and was replaced with a robot. When she saw I was absolutely serious, she nodded cautiously.

I ended up telling her more than I intended to. I don't usually talk much (I have more things going on in my brain that tend to keep me very quiet), but I spilled everything, from my impression of the store, to having taken forever to mop the place, to running into Kyle "I never shut the hell up" Broflovski. Maybe it's because I never really do anything, so I never have anything to tell anyone about, but tonight I actually felt glad my sister was around to hear all this.

I finally got to the part with the twitchy kid.

"Do you think it's weird that I'm so fixated on him?"

"I'd normally say that it's kinda creepy," she admitted, gesturing with her fork as she said it. "But since he looks familiar, I guess that's normal. Which is saying something, considering it's _you_ we're talking about."

I nodded, finding a strange sense of closure in my sister's honesty. I grabbed her empty plate and moved to take it to the sink. While I stood there washing the dishes (I figured I'd give Bea a break since she bothered to listen to me without calling me a pussy in any way), she suddenly said, "keep me posted, though! I'm kind of curious, too!" which might have been the first thing she's ever genuinely said that sounded delighted about anything that had to do with me. It was my turn to stare at her, swearing I'd see an android behind me when I did, but all I saw was her smile, which I'd forgotten was sort of cute for a troll princess.

"And that Kyle kid is fucking annoying. I would've kicked his ass." I heard the scraping of her chair as she got up, and the padding of her feet against the floor as she left.

Suddenly the thought of us coming out of the same mother didn't seem so horrible.


	3. Realization

If there's anything about movies or television that I envy the most, it's the montages. A whole _year's_-worth of activities can be over in a manner of a few minutes with a montage. All the important things are equally covered, no time is wasted, and before you know it, you've hit the real meat behind it all. There's no fucking around with montages; they get to point, like a goddamn boss. I'll admit I hate to actually _watch_ them because they're usually set to some random and annoying motivational song ('80's movies are the worst offenders here), but if I could really do that in real life, zip past all the bullshit and get to the point without dicking around, well…I'd be _so_ happy.

Too bad so sad for me, though, since there's no on-switch for that in reality. So when I had to suffer through my work-adjusted Saturday morning routine (waking up at an ungodly hour in a drool-soaked pillow, punching my honking alarm clock off the stand, falling on it when I tripped out of bed, suffering through my little sister's voice, sleeping too long in the shower, having to deal with Clyde being Clyde), I didn't look particularly forward to the rest of the week.

Waking up and getting ready early in the morning has never been my favorite part of any new day. If I had it my way, I'd always get up by noon at the earliest (and by "get up" I mean "be consciously awake but still continue to lay in bed for another few hours"). But it's fine. It was painful, but uneventful, which was most important. My days would repeat themselves, I was sure, again and again and again until the week eventually flew by, like life's knockoff half-price version of a montage, and there was nothing to be done about that.

Except no. It wasn't like that at all.

Because (and this is very crucial) Saturday didn't just end after I'd woken up. No, Saturday actually _transpired_, with all the events within it taking place, and then Saturday _went_, leaving me like a sleazy whore I'd slept with at a cheap motel who didn't care what would happen if she stole my cash and car and left me in the morning. You don't wake up from something like that and just walk it off.

With everything that had happened Saturday, by the time Sunday rolled around, it was almost immediate that I found it to be a completely different day from the one before, beginning the minute my head hit the pillow Saturday night to the second I awoke the next morning, and continuing on until I went to sleep again that evening. But it didn't just stop with Sunday, no. I soon discovered that every day thereafter would be marginally different from the one preceding it. And, in my honest opinion, this was all Saturday's fault.

Let me give you an example of what brought me to this conclusion.

Between late Saturday night and early Sunday morning, I found myself unable to get to sleep. Usually I'm out like a light, but when I tucked into bed at around 11:30 PM on Saturday, I ended up lying in bed staring at the ceiling for what felt like hours. It wasn't your typical case of insomnia, though. I couldn't sleep because I was thinking too much.

And I wasn't just thinking of any old thing.

I couldn't get that stupid _kid_ off my mind.

Occasionally I would remind myself that this was borderline creepy, almost obsessive, and would resolve to go to sleep by curling into a ball and forcing my eyes shut. But when I did that, the image of his face would flash in my mind and I would snap my eyes open again, scrunching my brows in frustration as I struggled to remember _who he was_. Soon, there I was: sleeping on top of my bed sheets with my arms curled behind my head, just _thinking_, at three in the morning.

Sometimes I would shove the two of us into ridiculous and outlandish scenarios where I might have possibly known him once before. Scenarios where we're both ex-MIB agents or long-lost Siamese twins or he's my father from the past (I liked this one the best because it involved the DeLorean). When my mind began treading into the plots of _The Bourne Identity_, _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, _or even _Anastasia_, I realized this was starting to get out of hand.

Somehow at some point I even managed to drift off to sleep and _dreamed_ about this kid's face. I was at that state of consciousness where the line between reality and dream was a hazy blur, thus creating the illusion that I was still awake in bed when the dream took place. It was a really awkward dream, too: I dreamt the kid was suddenly on top of me, his arms folded across my chest and his face all up in mine. I don't remember dream!me _minding _either, which was the freakiest part. The traitorous bastard had our hands all over that guy's hair, petting it like it was made of clouds or something. Dream!blondie had star stickers all over his face and was smiling like the whole goddamn world was made of gardens and sunshine. He was also singing Katy Perry's "California Gurls" softly to me, as if it were a lullaby, and though I'd never spoken to the kid and thus had no idea what he sounded like, I just _knew_ the voice drifting past his lips was wholly his own. I also couldn't remember if he was actually wearing clothes either, but that's just a whole other realm of weird I didn't want to, uh, _touch_.

How borderline homo this dream was ended up startling me awake with a yelp. My brain calmed down enough to grab my alarm clock and, after realizing I'd actually woken up about a whole ten minutes before my alarm was meant to go off, I decided I was too disturbed to go back to sleep and went ahead and started my day.

Unfortunately, that very peculiar morning was the only remotely interesting thing to happening during what felt like the longest goddamn day in the world. Let me tell you: Sunday was hell.

Which was weird, because nothing really _happened_ on Sunday, save my weird dream. Nothing is usually my favorite brand of happenings, but it wasn't _just_ that nothing was happening: it felt like something was actually missing. After waking up extra early, I ended up arriving to work ten minutes earlier than Clyde. I did everything he told me to do that day without question, and I was civil to most people who came in (none of whom, I was pleased to find, were Stan, Kyle, Kenny, or Cartman). I was acting so unlike myself that Clyde suggested I go home, to which I responded with the first Craigish thing of the day and told him to bite me. He allowed me stay after that.

But _nothing_ happened. Nothing I wanted to happen, anyway. I think that's what ruined my nothing of a Sunday: I was expecting something. It was kind of sad, I would later reflect, that during the normal course of my life, when I would love nothing more than to be left alone in complete solidarity and boring placidity, _everyone_ and their mothers and Kyle's great-uncle find it absolutely necessary to invade my personal bubble. Then, of course, the _one_ time I give a rat's ass and actually wait for something (or some_one_) to happen to me, I receive the nothingness I would prefer at any other occasion.

(I suppose Sunday wasn't _entirely_ composed of nothing. "California Gurls" was so stuck in my head that I went from loathing it to actually liking it in the course of a few hours. I ended up going home that day, stealing the Katy Perry CD from my sister, importing it to my computer, and sticking the song on repeat on my music library until I fell asleep.)

There was no way to tell how much more eventful Monday could possibly be, but I decided to test-drive Sunday's change of pace to my morning routine and see if that made a difference.

So when my clock honked at me (my clock is a car, that's why it honks) at a new earlier time of 6:00 AM, instead of punching it to the floor, I sat up immediately, pressing the thing gently to sleep with my right hand as I rub at my eyes with my left. I yawned, stepping out of bed one leg at a time before dragging myself over to my guinea pig's cage. This is the only thing that doesn't change: I _have_ to greet him every day. He wakes up when I do and gets legitly mad, scratching and wheeking all furiously at everything, if I don't at least acknowledge him. Monday morning he's surprised to see me up so early when I pour pellets into his food bowl.

"Morning, smelly," I mumbled, poking my finger through the cage bars to massage the top of his head. He simply sat there in his cage, indifferent yet accepting, ever observing the world outside as it moved without him and not giving a damn either way. He and I are very similar.

I took a long twenty-minute shower because I _could_, dressed quickly, found time to eat a bagel (with a Cartman-heavy layer of cream cheese), and made it outside the door by 6:30. I arrived at the store at 6:40, five minutes sooner than normal (apparently I was walking faster, though I didn't notice). Clyde wasn't there when I arrived, and I didn't know what to do, so I sat out front staring expectantly into the horizon, waiting.

It hadn't occurred to me that my usual detest for mornings hadn't caught up with me yet.

Ten minutes later Clyde showed up, not walking, as I had supposed on Saturday, but being dropped off by his mom, which I had found out Sunday. It was a little ridiculous, considering he lives even closer to the store than I do…and that he's _fatter_ than me. I didn't feel like bitching him out about this that day, though, no matter how sheepish he looked getting out of the car and approaching me.

"Ohh, you're early! …Again. Are you sick?" I could tell he was trying to steer clear of the topic of his mom driving him to work. Honestly, he might as well have painted a huge target sign on his _feelings_ because there were so many shots I could have easily taken at him at this point.

I didn't respond to my natural instincts to rip on him, though. I didn't _want_ to respond at all. I didn't want to talk. I knew if I opened my mouth, the first thing I'd say would be something cruel, and then Clyde would get all butthurt and he'd _cry_ and then he'd _never_ unlock the door. I wanted to go inside. I wanted the workday to start already.

When I didn't say anything, he went ahead and opened the front door (I was awed; he was showing the remarkably high intelligence of a trained monkey that day), and we were in. My first task, apparently, was to go get the price tag gun and re-price certain items on a list he provided for me. Normally I'd have been ticked and probably would have used the gun on his face, but that day I decided to unquestioningly do what he said.

In about two and a half hours, I was done. Clyde was impressed, considering it probably would've taken me the same amount of time just to mop two aisles on a normal day. I also still hadn't said a word to him all day, which he appreciated immensely since it was considerably less painful for his ego. As a reward for me being what he defined as "nice" to him and getting my work done, he let me take a break. I almost didn't want to, finding it to be as patronizing as when he'd suggested I go home sick on Sunday, but he insisted that he actually needed to think of something else for me to do. So I relented, hiding in aisle 10 and starting a new cereal box maze.

At around 11:45, the bell above the door jingled with the sound of an entering patron. It made me weirdly excited, like it had every time someone walked in on Sunday, and I had to remind myself to keep my cool and _walk_ over as I went to investigate (the first time I'd reacted to someone coming in on Sunday, I'd ended up running and skidding into a shelf). All the same, I couldn't help but wear my excited face; I could actually _feel_ it, plastered all over my face like octopus tentacles. The fact that the sound of a door opening had caused me to react this way made me realize just how much of a mindless worker drone I'd been for the past few two days, milling around, killing time, waiting. I'd probably felt more excited in those two days than I had my entire life.

The feeling I got when I saw that it was actually Stan Marsh coming in, however, was something akin to the emotion I might feel when leaning over to witness my future wife giving birth only to have a fist shoot out of her vagina and punch me in the face.

Actually, a better example would be if, instead of a fist, it were Stan's face, hat and all, coming out of her vagina.

It was that terrible.

I stopped the minute I saw him, my excitement crumbling away and being swiftly replaced with a loathing-based nausea. Stan saw me, too. He probably found my look of initial excitement as horrifying as I found his mere existence to be awful, because he averted his eyes even faster than I was able to, playing it off like he hadn't seen me at all. I was then thankful for the only aspect of him that is at all not detestable to me: the fact that he is not Kyle.

Spotting Clyde at the register, he ambled over to him quickly, as if thankful for the distraction.

"Hey, Clyde."

Clyde blinked, glancing over the top of his magazine. His face broke into a grin when he noticed who was addressing him. "Stan! Hi! What's up?"

(See, I don't get this about Clyde or Token. They actually enjoy hanging out with Stan and Kyle. Half the reason I end up having to be surrounded by those guys is because my friends don't mind them and I have no one else to go to when I need people to chill with.)

"Yeah, um," Stan continued, looking bashful and scratching the back of his head, "can you help me find…?" He hesitated, glancing sideways with an apparent blush on his face. He leaned forward into Clyde's now awaiting ear, cupping around it to whisper words that are too faint for me to hear.

I can only imagine what he would need to buy that would provoke such a stupid look and such precautionary measures.

Clyde smirked. "Your sister?"

Stan looked glum. "And mom. _And_ Wendy."

Clyde, ever tactful, guffawed loudly, slapping the counter as he did so. "Man, Stan. You are such a _bitch_. You're going to make some prison inmate very happy should you ever end up in jail."

Stan punched Clyde in the arm (though distinctively more jokingly and less painfully than I'm sure Clyde is used to from me). "Dude, are you going to help me or not?"

Clyde snickers. "You can't ask…?"

I hadn't been watching them anymore, but when Clyde's question faded off like that, I knew for certain that he was jerking his head at me.

"No way!" Stan hissed, and though his voice had dropped dramatically in volume, I could still clearly make out what he was saying. "He might _bite_ me."

(I was aghast. If I were the biting type, I'd rather bite my _tongue_ to the point of chopping it off than get my mouth anywhere near Stan Marsh.)

Clyde laughed, though, that asshole, not even trying to mask his voice so I wouldn't hear that or the next thing he said. "Right, right. He hasn't had his rabies shot, either, so that would be doubly awful."

And they laughed and laughed and I pictured a land mine exploding beneath them both, and even though that would inevitably kill me too, the thought still helped me feel less angry.

"But seriously, though," Clyde continued after his laughter had subsided. "Craig's cool. He's supposed to be nice to you in here. It's so awesome, it's like when you mess with those British guards with the funny hats and they just stand there _taking it_."

Stan's face fell. "Please don't make me ask him."

"I'm right here, you know," I mumbled irritably.

Clyde could only offer an apologetic grin to Stan. "Sorry dude. I'm on break." He waved Stan off and returned to his magazine (_People_ today, meaning I'd be getting my unwanted dose of celebrity gossip later).

Stan sighed miserably, turning and walking over to me like he was about to go face the electric chair. He muttered a reluctant, "hey, Craig," when he reached me, even as he stared at a wall and the ceiling and anywhere but my face.

"What do you want?"

He winced, but I felt no sympathy. We both knew this was going to be unpleasant.

"Uhh, I need, um, need some…" he began before his voice dropped out in a murmur. I didn't catch the last part of what he said, it coming out sounding like "trrmmpuhm", but based on everything that had transpired in the past few minutes, I could only assume what he wanted. "Could you help me find them?"

"I sure hope so." Before either of us could clarify what the other was referring to, I trudged off, Stan trailing close behind me.

The feminine hygiene products were located at the very end of the last aisle and hidden deep in the darkest corner of the store. A light bulb had apparently gone out long before even Clyde started working here, and I think Mr. Johnson refused to fix it especially for guys like Stan.

Since I wasn't the one buying this stuff, I had no problem personally seeking it out. Stan, on the other hand, looked mortified. I suppose, had it been anyone other than me with him, he would have probably been less uncomfortable. He was the type of whipped bitch-boy who'd probably been buying this stuff for the women in life since he learned how to walk; surely he was used to the embarrassment by now. The only thing making him so nervous at the moment, then, must have been the impending barrage of mockery that would ultimately result from the person he just so happened to be with. Even I had to admit that this was kind of a goldmine for jackasses like me.

However, as I lead him into his poorly lit corner of shame, where tampons and menstrual pads converged and lurked about like beady-eyed wall creatures in a darkened cave, I decided to let the guy off the hook for the sheer fact that he had managed not to piss me off. He thanked me very quietly, and I turned to leave, glad that this was all over.

And then…

"So, yeah, Kyle told me you were working here. That's pretty cool, dude!"

I tried to remain calm, squeezing my eyes shut in exasperation. I guess that his attempt at polite conversation was supposed to be some form of gratitude toward me for both taking him to this aisle and not giving him hell about it. It just served to make things more awkward.

"Uh, yeah. It's great." I tried to leave again.

"He told me he invited you to my meet Saturday. You coming?"

I cringed, not at what Stan had said, but the fact that he was still speaking. "I don't know."

"I'd really appreciate it. You can even sit with Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman. I'm sure they wouldn't mind hanging out with you."

"Sure. Whatever. I'm going to walk away now."

I crossed a good three feet before Stan suddenly said, "hold on, wait, can you lend me a hand? I don't think I can carry everything by myself," and I realized there was no escape from this madness.

Wondering how many tampons one man could possibly be buying, I turned and groaned loudly, seeing he was already holding about four large boxes and was reaching for another two more. Grudgingly, I dragged myself back over to him, opened up my arms, and accepted all four boxes of whatever he'd chosen as he attacked the shelf once again.

He kept talking to me, too, and I began to wonder if Stan was really standing in front of me, or if it was Kyle in a Stan suit, which I wouldn't have been at all surprised to know he owned. At one point my self-control gave out and I snapped, "look, Stan, I don't want you to bleed all over my newly mopped floor, so let's hurry this up, okay?"

He shut up immediately, going red in the face. He'd since been done with his selection so, pacified, I began walking ahead of him and rounding the corner toward the register.

That's when I saw it all happen.

The hand slipping into the box of Skittles by the register, that same hand stuffing a single package into a deep pocket, the boy looking as composed as ever while Clyde absentmindedly rung up his order. The transaction happened fast, and the boy was twitching again as soon as he made his way over to the door.

It was that kid. The kid from Saturday. The kid I almost caught stealing. The kid whose familiar-as-all-hell face I just couldn't place to the point where it was all I thought about and apparently dreamed about. I briefly wondered why I hadn't noticed the door opening when he'd come him, but I chalked the fault of that to Stan and his absurdly ardent need to talk to me.

As soon as I froze in my steps, I felt Stan run into my back, unable to have stopped in time. He began to demand what was the holdup, but when saw where I had been staring, he suddenly shouted, "hey, dude!"

The kid was standing at the door, one hand on the handle and the other on the plastic bag, when he heard Stan and spun around. The two of us, he and I, saw each other at the same time, and I was so overwhelmed that I dropped everything I was holding.

The fear didn't flood into him instantly, like it did Saturday. His face underwent a look that was equal parts surprise and…relief, as if he had been expecting me. I could tell that he remembered me from the other day, but just didn't know how to react.

I strode toward him, then, deciding to be the first person to break this staring contest. I could only manage a word or two out of my mouth, though, something like "wait" or "can I just—?", before his brain seemed to turn back on and he remembered where he was and what he was doing and, more importantly, I suppose, whom I was. Realizing all this at once caused him to utter one of his weird little noises, and then, before I could react, he shoved on the door and left.

Automatically, I raced after him, reaching the door in time to watch him pedal away on a green bike.

"Goddammit!"

Remembering Clyde had rang him up, I sped back to the register.

"Clyde. _Tell me_ you saw his face this time."

"Ahh, uh…" Clyde mumbled uneasily, not looking me in the eye. "I did…"

I was momentarily relieved. "And?_"_

"I don't really know him."

"…_what?" _ I must have looked pretty scary when I said this, because Clyde actually backed up a full step, holding his hands up like I was going to throttle him.

"I've seen him at school a few times, but, I mean, I've never talked to him or had a class with him or anything! I have no idea what his name is!"

The more Clyde said things, the closer I was to hitting him. My facial expression may have given this away, though, because he hastily spoke again, saying, "he mostly hangs out with Stan and Kyle! O-or other kids I don't really know. I've only started seeing him around since February!"

I turned, realigning my target.

"Stanley," I said calmly, thankful for once that he was here and felt like being chatty today. "You're friends with that kid?"

Stan remained silent, momentarily surprised. I'd never approached him before with such a fevered look on my face (or approached him willingly at _all_ anyway) so I suppose it was understandable that he'd be thrown off. "What? Him? Yeah, I am."

"Tell me his name."

He frowned, trying to put things together in his brain from whatever he'd inferred from the situation. The fact that I was actually talking to him and encouraging him to talk back to me was curious enough. That I was being so uncharacteristically emotional, as well as highly concerned with this boy, also clearly bothered him.

"Why?" he finally said, eyeing me suspiciously. "What do you want with him?"

"I don't want to _do_ anything to him!"

He mused a little more. "You can't tell me you've never seen him around at school before."

"Considering how hard I try to block out half the idiots there, no, I haven't."

Stan continued to reason this all out, and I continued to hate him for that.

"Well didn't seem too thrilled to see you," he concluded decisively, ever the thoughtful son-of-a-bitch.

I stared, waiting to see where this was going.

"I don't know, Craig. Maybe I'll just leave this between the two of you."

There was no language in the world that had the means to adequately express my frustration when I heard that. I couldn't believe it. The one time I _wanted_ to talk to Stan and he wasn't cooperating. It was like having the key to a locked treasure chest right in front of me, except the key was hidden in a box of used syringes and was a huge pussy named Stan. I groaned, grabbing my head in agony. There was no way this tampon-buying hippie was going to let up, and I was way above groveling. It was hopeless.

Without another word (because I knew I was bound to say horrible, horrible things I could never take back), I returned to aisle 10 where I proceeded to rip open a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and start eating it. I heard Stan retrieving his boxes from the ground, Clyde ringing him up, Stan calling me psycho, Stan exiting… all sorts of things that would have normally made me happy to hear, but just couldn't cut it this time.

The next few hours disappeared quickly, and soon it was eight again and work was over. As Clyde and I exited the empty store and I started to walk home, Clyde suddenly said to me, "coffee ice cream," all bluntly like that, like I was supposed to understand.

I stopped a few feet away. "What?"

"That kid bought an individualized tub of coffee ice cream. Hopefully that'll help."

It didn't.

Well, actually, it _did_. It helped because it sounded very right in correlation to this boy, like it was unraveling a very important aspect of him. But it wasn't _enough. _It felt like wiping the dust off an old painting, but only being able to uncover an eye or a nose of the subject in the frame. Like an identity was on the tip of my tongue, but I was no more closer than that. What made this new information completely unhelpful was how not _completely_ helpful it was. It was just painful.

"You're an asshole," I growled, and stalked off toward home.

Later that night I was in my kitchen forcing myself to eat cold leftover City Wok chow mein, all while staring intently at the wall opposite me as if willing it to catch fire. Bea and I had discussed the food situation on Saturday, and compromised that every night we'd trade off buying dinner and on the weekend I'd make pancakes or whatever frozen food we had. Yesterday she'd paid for a pizza. Today, with the ten I left behind, she had chosen Chinese. She'd already eaten a good half of it. I wasn't particularly hungry, so I guess it was okay.

At some point, Bea walked in. She picked up the carton of noodles I was eating out of and frowned at it before putting it back down.

"Didn't you at least warm this up first? What are you, stupid?"

When I didn't respond, she somehow she took it as an invitation to sit down.

"So how was your luck today?

I glanced at her apprehensively. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"How was your luck with that _bo_y?"

"…what boy?"

She actually got so mad that she stood up and smacked me in the forehead. "The one from Saturday! God, what planet are you from?"

I was too amazed that she had remembered our conversation on Saturday to care that she had just hit me.

"I didn't get any news yesterday," she continued, "and you were acting like your lame boring robot self, so I assumed nothing happened. At least today you're showing _emotions_, albeit some shitty ones, so let's have it!"

It never occurred to me that I'd gone all of yesterday without having spoken to her. I wasn't sure what to make of that, so after a beat of silence, I did tell her. Everything. About how empty my Sunday felt and how stupid today was. I even told her about my weird dream. She listened very carefully.

The first thing she said when I was finished was, "that dream sounded creepy as fuck. You're creepy, Craig. You're creepy."

"I'm aware."

Then she shrugged. "Well, creepiness aside, everything else sounds like progress, right?"

"Are you retarded? He _ran away_. Again."

"Shut up, nobody likes a goddamn Negative Nancy. I'm sure he'll be back."

"What kind of thief returns to the scene of the crime?"

"He came back today, didn't he?" She had a point.

All the same, I moaned, massaging my temples. "This is so fucking dumb. I don't even know why I care so much."

"Look," she said, adopting a strangely serious tone. "I know first-hand from having lived with you my whole life that you are a boring, anti-social, anti-_everything,_ untalented, stupid, waste-of-breath—"

"Is there a point to this or are you just going to flatter me all day?"

"The point is that you're a loser who hates everyone! So, personally, from this standpoint, I think it's kind of nice that you give a crap about someone other than yourself for once. You must care for a _reason_; you just don't know it yet. So quit _whining_, you sound like a little bitch." She stood up. "Good night, ugly!" And she bounded off.

From that moment forward I decided not go a single night without telling my sister about my day at work.

* * *

When Clyde realized Tuesday afternoon that working _alongside_ me was a lot more fun than separating the two of us, he decided to give me an assignment that actually involved him as well: stocking aisle 7 with fruit juices. Originally it was a job just for me (like all the jobs are), but when I kept bringing boxes out from the backroom and lining the aisle with them, we both noticed it created something like a fort in the middle of the store. We actually stopped working for half an hour to play war with bags of marshmallows and cotton balls (and the occasional can).

When we were done (Clyde won, by the way, but only because he decreed it so, as store manager), he decided to just help me finish what I was doing. He even offered to be the one to actually stock the shelves if I would be the one to go back and forth between the store and the stockroom lugging boxes. I didn't understand how much more strenuous my task was, however, until it was too late to complain about it (Clyde had constituted this point in time by quickly yelling, "no tag-backs!").

As I was in the middle of my job, carting a particularly heavy box of grape fruit juice liters back to the aisle, Clyde suddenly said, "someone walked in while you were back there. Check on them, will you?"

"What are you, the Grand Poobah? Why don't _you _go do it?" I demanded.

He sighed dramatically, the kind of sigh one uses when they're dealing with an idiot. "Oh, Craig. So naive. The art of stocking the juice shelves is an ancient skill that is clearly much too complicated for a young padawan such as yourself to even begin to comprehend."

I rolled my eyes, flipping him off and walking away before he _really_ got one of his long-winded delusional speeches underway. I wandered down the rows of aisles, glancing up and down every one in an attempt to find the customer, until I was back in the produce section again.

Then, in an intense case of déjà vu that could have only been decreed by the grand scheme of the cosmos… I saw him. That kid, here again, and by the asparagus this time.

It was in that same moment that, as my brain struggled to stop reeling from the crippling shock, I also realized that the store was completely empty, save him, Clyde, and me. My stomach lurched. Was I seriously going to finally be allowed to talk to him without someone screwing it up for me? There was almost no way. I half expected a herd of cattle to come crashing through the store before that would be possible.

His back was to me, so he hadn't noticed that I was watching him. It was also likely that he was too preoccupied to notice either, which I concluded when I observed him struggling furiously with a plastic bag between his fingers. It was a produce bag, the type that required one to rub the correct end of it between his fingers in order to open it. The boy was having a difficult time with his bag, rubbing it in all the wrong places and failing to get the right side open.

Seeing this as a golden opportunity, I strode over, coming up silently behind him, and stole the plastic from his clutches. He squeaked in surprise to see the thing disappear before his eyes, but didn't run away, not even when he turned to see me standing behind him (although seeing me did cause him to jump slightly). With a nervous stare, he watched as I turned the bag over, found the right end, rubbed it once between my index finger and thumb, and opened it with ease. I handed it back to his shaking hands and saw his gaze as it traveled from the now open bag he held, to my fingers, and finally to my face (but not my eyes).

"Hi," I finally said, not knowing what else _to_ say.

"_Oh, Jesus!_" He spontaneously crumpled the bag between his hands, looking small and defenseless before me. I briefly noticed that this was the first time I'd ever heard his voice. It was high-pitched and squeaky, like a mouse. This kid was a human mouse.

I fixed a firm watch on him, however, not allowing his peculiarity to distract me. "Glad to know our bags are working out for you today. I know how much you prefer your own clothing pockets."

"_Erk_! Wha-what do you mean?"

"Don't be stupid." I leaned in close, whispering now. "How'd the apple taste? Delicious?"

His face was now littered with both confusion and terror.

"And those Skittles? I bet they taste better when they're free_."_

A shriek near leaped its way out between his lips, but he clamped his hands over his mouth, muffling it. "Are you suggesting I…," he spoke between his fingers, still twitching, "_stole_ _those things?_" Even his own mention of the words seemed to freak him out and he made another frenzied series of weird noises. "Why would you _think _that? Dude, do you know how much trouble I would get into if I stole something? My parents would ground me! I might go to jail! You know what happens to skinny blonds in the slammer, man!"

"How do I know you aren't faking that innocent act?" I retorted, though admittedly for all the absurdity that was lurking behind everything _he_ had just said, it was all strangely believable.

He'd since removed his hands from his mouth and now clung to the hem of shirt. "_Gah!_ You don't! But you don't know that I did anything, either, and I'm telling you, _I didn't!_"

He was right. There was no way I could prove he had stolen anything at this point. Without any evidence, I had no way of convicting him.

Then I eyed what he was wearing. The large sweater was missing, in its place a simple crumpled green long-sleeved t-shirt. He was, however, wearing a long pair of black shorts, the kind with big, deep pockets. It might have been my imagination, but they appeared to have slight bulges to them.

"Those are nice shorts," I began, still gazing at them. "They look a little full." I walked around him in a half circle, keeping my eyes on his pants' pockets, until I was standing behind him again.

Before anything else could take place, my hands acted without my brain giving them permission and begin groping around the outside of his pants' pockets, feeling for contents. There was definitely something in them so, amid the kid's screaming, my hands suddenly dove _into_ the pockets.

"Oh my _God_! What are you doing? Get away from me!"

Clyde must have heard the kid's first cry of distress because he'd already been running toward the sound and had managed to reach us just as my hands went pants spelunking. "Dude!" he exclaimed, grabbing me around the torso and pulling me off the boy. My hands flew out of the pockets, tightly clasped around whatever had been in them, and when I opened them before my eyes I found myself grasping…a cell phone and a set of house keys.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" the kid demanded as soon as I was out of his pants and he was free. I tried to hand him back his things, spewing out sorry apologies, but he snatched them back angrily.

Clyde, too, tried to apologize for what I'd done, but the guy had already split, slamming out the front door, before he finished speaking.

Without warning, Clyde shoved me. "What's your problem? You've been acting seriously weird these past few days!"

When I didn't retaliate or say anything mean in response, Clyde looked immediately regretful for having pushed me, like he was afraid he'd broken me or something and now I wasn't working right. I had, instead, sighed and ran a hand up my forehead, under my hat, and through my hair.

"I don't know what came over me. I might have gotten out of control, but, dude, you don't even _know_; the mystery behind this guy is _torture_." I realized this made no sense as an explanation for what I had done, even as it was coming out of my mouth. But it was really hard to explain my motives when I was skirting around the topic of theft.

"Unless he's a flippin' spy or secret agent, it might be a little more friendly and less invasive of personal bubbles to, y'know, _not_ put your hands in his pants?" Clyde eyed me curiously. "It's hard to believe you're _just_ trying to get a name or something from him, dude. You better not be keeping anything from me." For a second there I believed he was onto me and I was going to have to tell him the truth. Then he added, "he's not really a spy, is he?" and I knew I had overestimated Clyde's observational skills.

We spent the rest of the day pretending nothing had ever happened.

When I arrived home later that night, I found Bea on the couch watching a movie_._ She shushed me as I tried to speak, but I didn't mind, considering she was watching my copy of _500 Days of Summer, _which I occasionally hesitate to admit to my friends and acquaintances that I not only own but also quite irrevocably adore, if only because watching the main character live his life is like watching a more interesting and smiley version of myself.

I allowed the two of us to watch the movie for another twenty minutes before I muttered, "I talked to him today."

Bea immediately paused the movie and shut off the television, turning and giving me her full attention. We talked for about an hour and a half thereafter.

"Maybe you should try _not_ starting off with the theft," she finally assessed after all the details of that afternoon's disaster.

"Sure, if he comes _back._"

"Yeah, you're right. You really fucked that one up." She stood up, then, and I knew my session with her was over. "But I have faith in you. Even if you apparently have as much expertise at talking to boys as you do talking to girls."

My sister's tactlessness aside, she had made a valid suggestion. The most threatening approach was clearly not working. I had it all in my brain to come at him from an alternate angle, but as I went my entire Wednesday morning the next day without running into him, I began to wonder if I would ever get the chance to implement my new plan of attack. As each hour passed, I lost a little more hope that he was planning on showing up that day, if ever again. By around 11:50 I had already long since turned into a mopping robot devoid of a will to be there.

"It's quiet in here," Clyde suddenly declared. Besides the absence of my mystery boy, there really hadn't been many other customers. It _was_ quiet.

I glanced about at the ceiling. "I think those are speakers in the corners. Is there a way to play music?" I asked.

My question aroused an "Ah-Ha!" look on Clyde's face. He stuck his index finger in the air. "Oh! That must be what that thing is for!" He began digging around in his pocket, pulled out his MP3 player, and dove down behind the register. I heard him muttering and tinkering over there, then suddenly, over our heads, the sounds of bad pop music belted out and filled the store.

"Yay! Check it out, Craig!"

I scrunched up my nose. "What _is_ this?"

"Ke$ha!"

"Oh, no, I am _not_ going to listen to this all morning."

"Aww," he pouted, "but I like it!"

"If you don't change the fucking song, I'm going to go over there and break your Zune."

Before Clyde could protest ("Her name is _Claudia_ and you will not touch her!"), the door slammed open, hitting the bell hanging above it so hard that the thing was flung off its hook and was sent screaming into the side of the register. Fortunately for me, based on the level of disgruntlement on the customer's face as he listened to our speakers, _he_ didn't appreciate Clyde's taste in music, either.

"What the fuck is this shit? Is this Ke$ha? Turn that crap off!"

Unfortunately, however, the customer also happened to be Cartman.

I began to wonder if there was a big neon sign perched over the store telling everyone I hate to show up and harass me.

As Clyde, ever obedient to the obese bastard he secretly admired, quickly fumbled with his MP3 player and replaced Ke$ha with Taylor Swift (a bearable improvement), Cartman spotted me.

"Oh, _hey_, Craig…" the fat tub of lard drawled, his grin looking like it was housing all the evil in the world. "I overheard the Jew mention you were working here, and I just _had_ to see for myself."

I stared at him. "Seriously? Why? Why the _hell_ would that interest you at all?"

Cartman scoffed. "I just couldn't believe _you_ of all people could actually hold a job! I mean, you haven't worked a goddamn day in your life and you're dumb as shit, not to mention a huge fucking bore! Tell me, how many customers have complained about your incompetence? Your crappy service? How _lame_ you are?"

"That last one isn't even a legitimate thing to complain about."

"Oh-ho, but I can _make_ it something to complain about. 'Sir, I'm afraid this ugly little asswipe has bored me to tears! I'm suing for emotional abuse! And I think I've gone legally blind, his jacked-up teeth are just so hideous!'" he cried in a horrible falsetto. "Don't think I can't find a way to get you fired, buttpipe, so don't fuck with me!"

We'd only been about two minutes into this meeting and I felt like I'd rather crawl into a hole and get eaten alive by rats than continue another second of it.

Cartman glanced over at the counter. "Oh yeah, Clyde works here, too, huh? He your boss? That how you got the job, Craig? What'd you do, blow him? I'm sure you've gotten really good at that, what with all the practice."

I might have failed to mention this, but out of everything Cartman liked to say to me, what he enjoyed the most was the various ways he could insinuate that I was gay.

Fortunately, Clyde and I have figured out a way to combat this.

"Yeah, Cartman. I gave him a blowjob. That's how I got this job. Would you like one, too?"

"It's true! He sure does give a mean fellatio," Clyde piped, licking his lips for effect. "I think you're just his type, too!"

Cartman looked alarmed. "Dude, no, I don't want you to suck me off! That's sick! You're fucked up!" He shoved past me, stomping off in whatever direction.

Clyde and I shared a grin behind his fat back. Clyde pantomimed a blowjob at me while pointing toward Fatass, and I responded by pretending to gag myself. It's not pretend, though, since the thought of putting my mouth anywhere near Cartman Jr. made me want to vomit out all the organs in my body.

Taylor Swift ended as I began to return to my abandoned mop in aisle 10, and… _Justin Bieber_ came on after it.

I gave Clyde a look. "Really?"

He was already fidgeting with his device in an attempt to change the song. I told him I was coming over to his house after work that day to make a store-appropriate playlist and that he had absolutely no say on the matter.

Eventually, as I finished up my mopping in the same aisle, a song I didn't _completely_ detest actually came on. It was that really popular new Train song, one I actually kind of liked the first time I heard it. Then my sister blasted in on repeat in her room for a week, and after that I swore to punch a person for every time I so much as heard an inkling of its tune.

It'd been awhile since I last heard it, though, and all the same, it was still just as catchy as I found it the first time. Before I knew it I was bobbing my head along to the beat, humming to the tune, and whispering snatches of lyrics I could actually remember. I didn't normally do such things, but I guess it wasn't the _most_ off I'd been all week.

When the chorus made its way around again and my singing started to get uncontrollably louder, I suddenly realized that I wasn't the only one singing. My voice gradually dropped out as I noticed this, and I distinctly heard it. I wasn't immediately sure of where it was coming from, but as I blinked at the wall separating the shelves of aisle ten from the shelves of aisle eleven, I deduced that the owner of the voice was hidden on the other side.

Deciding I had nothing better to do, I chose to investigate, hoping to God as I crept over that it wasn't Cartman over there.

But, nope, when I peered around the corner, I saw that it was in fact not Cartman, but instead, to my utmost triumph, my evasive little blond thief standing by a rack of batteries and studying them curiously (albeit with the occasional twitch). Not only was he standing there, but his lips were moving as well; he was still singing. He was even dancing a little, too. I suppose it was more of a rocking of his hips from side to side with the beat of the song, but he was definitely doing _something_.

It was kind of bizarrely captivating to watch and I continued to for a good five seconds before remembering that I wanted to talk to him and by some great will of God he had come back again today after our travesty of a meeting from yesterday. I shook my head to clear it of distractions, told myself to remember the game plan, and ambled over.

I walked up behind him just as he'd grabbed a small pack of triple A batteries, pulling them down and toward himself with the left hand clutching them. When I noted that he was wearing the same kind of shorts from yesterday, I immediately (and stupidly) assumed he was going for the pocket again and shot out my hand, grabbing his wrist before he could.

He spun around wildly in my grip, locking his surprised wide eyes with mine. That was when I noticed the basket he was holding in his other hand and how logical it would have been to _also_ assume that that's where his left hand was really aiming for. In that same quick second, I'd noticed there was already a small tub of coffee ice cream in the basket, and I wondered how I could have missed the thing in the first place.

The kid appeared too shocked to react as he normally would, staring at me like a dumb terrified rabbit. I felt hugely idiotic in that moment, and I hoped my facial expression conveyed that well enough. Normally, no matter what emotion I'm feeling, I perpetually wear a look of irritation; this was certainly not the best time for that.

"Sorry," I finally said.

Thankfully he hadn't screamed anything at me this time, but as he began shuffling his feet away, I realized he was trying to leave again. Fortunately I had forgot to let go of his wrist.

"Wait," I protested calmly, tugging him gently back toward me. He was about to shriek again, I could tell, so I quickly slammed my other hand over his mouth to silence him. This freaked him out even more, but I wasn't too surprised since anyone seeing the two of us would think I was attempting to sexually assault him. "Stop it! Calm down! I'm not going to do anything, I just want to talk."

A mix of emotions flashed in his eyes, and after a few seconds his panicking subsided and he stopped fidgeting.

My hand left his mouth, but I kept a hold on his wrist. He didn't scream when his lips were free, but continued to struggle to release himself from my hand.

"_Erk—_Let go! Don't hurt me!"

"Stop! I'm not going to hurt you, dummy. I've been trying to talk to you for like, _four days now_, but you're always running away!" I balanced my empty hand on my hip. "Speaking of which, you know, for someone who's trying so hard to get away from me, you sure do spend a lot of time here."

"_Nnngh_—maybe I wouldn't run away if you didn't keep putting your hands down my pants, you SEX OFFENDER!" he cried, pointing a finger in my face. I pushed it aside.

"Oh, God, that was _one time_."

"One time is one time too many! Let me go!"

I allowed him to wiggle around in my hand for a bit before I spoke. "I'll let you go if you promise not to leave."

"I don't make deals with terrorists!"

"I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, so I'm just going to let you go."

Surprisingly, he didn't leave. The first thing he did was rub his wrist where I had grabbed it, glaring at me beneath those long lashes of his. I noted that there was a height difference of about four inches between us. That was kind of interesting.

"You're short."

"Is that—_gghh—…_is that what you wanted to talk to me about?"

"No." I paused. I had no idea where the hell my first comment had come from. Maybe I wanted an explanation. Maybe I was stalling so he wouldn't leave.

Suddenly I blurted, "what's your name?" with it coming out sounding more like a statement than a question.

I had forgotten to mention this, but he'd been twitching the entire time we'd been talking. He twitched everywhere, by the way, his hands, his head, his eyes. It wasn't violent or spastic; more subtle, like a shiver coursing through his body, but noticeable all the same. I failed to mention it, seeing as how it was so apart of him that it kind of went without saying.

However, right when I asked that, he suddenly went rigid, his twitching disappearing in a quick second all over his body. "Y-you really don't know?" There was a detectable trace of disappointment in his tone that he didn't try to hide and a curious absence of his odd noises.

"No," I admitted. "Should I, then? I do know you from somewhere?"

He continued to wear his defeat on his face, the twitching still missing "You…don't remember? …Anything?"

I shrugged, shaking my head.

To my surprise, I watched as his brows furrowed in a frown, his lips getting pouty and his eyes flashing with animosity. "Figure it out yourself, _Craig_," he spat bitterly. He shoved the pack of batteries into my stomach where I moved my hands to grab it, then stormed out of the building, slamming his way out as he did.

I hadn't even gotten a chance to react yet as I stood in shock of what just took place when I sensed a presence behind me.

"Jeez, what the hell's eating him?"

Only Cartman could make an already terrible situation more terrible just by existing. As I had begun to say something to this effect (and probably add something about how he was fat) I remembered that this tubby asshole hung out with Stan and Kyle and, most importantly, this kid.

"What's his name?"

Cartman sneered. "Ohh, I've heard all about this thing between you two, Craig. Twitchy over there told us he didn't want any of us telling you who he is. He paid a pretty hefty sum to get _me_ not to talk. Question is: how much are _you_ willing to pay, hmm?"

I flipped him off.

Later that night, long after I'd gotten home from Clyde's house to find my sister already asleep, and as I was crawling into bed, I realized the blond kid never returned his ice cream, nor did I hear him pay for it. I was momentarily pissed until I also remembered that he'd referred to me by my name when I'd never told him it. I sighed, rolled over with my hat still on my head, and fell asleep.

* * *

My plans for the remaining two days in the workweek were a little more premeditated.

I had woken up early Thursday morning to sneak into my sister's room, assaulting her with stuffed toys and jumping on her bed until she woke up, just so I could fill her in on the details of the day before. Before she flipped me off, kicked me off her bed, and threw all her sharpest possessions at me until I finally left her room, she chided me for being an "insensitive clod" and advised that I not only _not_ mention the theft but also not to come on strongly _at all_. Actually, what she really said was that, "it'd be great if you just didn't say anything and wore a bag over your head, but knowing you, you'd probably screw that up, too," but I knew what she really meant.

I don't know what kept me optimistic all day Thursday, but I was fortunate enough to have caught him walking up to the store that afternoon just in time to skid over to the frozen aisle when I did. I hid at the end of the aisle, waiting and peering around the corner for him to arrive. Just as I assumed, arrive he did, stopping at the doors housing the ice cream and opening one, peering in curiously.

I wandered over as innocently as I could (there may or may not have been a slight bounce in my step, since, after all, the bounce is the least threatening of all steps. I felt as stupid as I probably looked). As I intended, he was immediately alerted to my presence before I surprised him, and thus didn't freak out like he usually did. I _knew_ he'd at least seen me out of the corner of his eye, anyway, because he suddenly looked both annoyed and anxious, all while avoiding looking directly at me.

Instead of walking right up to him, I halted at the door right next to his. The freezer doors open to the left, so the one he had open was on _his_ left at the time, leaving no barrier between the two of us. I opened the one I was standing in front of, though, and suddenly I was looking at him through a thick layer of glass and frost.

I knocked on the glass and he twitched in slight surprise before blinking over at me, his irritation being swiftly usurped by his newfound curiosity. I waved. Then, using that same hand, I placed my finger against the glass.

_Hi, how are you?_ I wrote with my index finger. It took me awhile to do because I was writing backwards, but I had practiced writing backwards late the night before when I first thought of doing this, so it wasn't too difficult. I at least hoped it was legible.

He took a second to read the words, glancing at me briefly and warily before leaning forward to breathe on his side of the glass. In the condensation of his hot breath, he wrote out, _Fine._

I found amusement in realizing that this was the first exchange of words we'd had where he hadn't shrieked at me. I imagined him writing his noises out in the glass, too, and couldn't help but smile at how freakishly cute that kind of sounded.

_Awesome, _I wrote back beneath my first line of words. _I like your scarf_. It was a black scarf. I didn't really know if I liked the scarf itself, but it looked decent enough on him.

He read this, frowned, _twitched_, then tugged on the sleeves of his coat, staring at me. "What do you want?"

_Your name_. I wrote. I thought for a moment, and then added, _I'm Craig._

"Gghh—I _know_ who _you_ are!" he said rudely, continuing to glare.

_);_ I mimicked the face I had drawn behind the glass.

He made an angry noise (I hadn't heard that one before; it sounded almost like a normal person noise), turning back to his open freezer, searching about wildly for what I'm sure was his coffee ice cream. Too bad for him, though, since I removed all of that this morning before he arrived, and hid them in a different area of the freezer, behind the frozen food.

From behind my back, I produced the single tub that I had saved. It took him a moment to notice it, but when he did, he glared at me and tried to grab at it. I pulled it back.

Training a very serious look on him, I blurted, "what if I told you I'd beat you up if you didn't tell me who you are?"

The reaction was hilarious.

"_Oh, God! Oh, Jesus!" _He called out to some other very holy people, pulled at his hair, grabbed at his shirt.

"Just kidding." I shoved the ice cream into his hand. I didn't usually have that much fun teasing people. Normally I was just trying to get rid of them. Funnily enough, it was quite the opposite with this kid. I was trying to test my boundaries, and I liked the way he reacted. It was peculiar, but quirky.

Unfortunately, now that he had the ice cream, he no longer had a reason to be here. And so, he left. And very bitterly, too. This time he paid for it.

Friday started out very much the same: the waiting by the door, the watching him approach, the running to the frozen section. I'd even hidden all the individual sized coffee ice creams again, hoping that this time he would _have_ to approach me if he wanted to find them. The only difference between this day and the last was that on Friday I had previously been mopping the condiments aisle, which was 5, when I'd had to drop my mop immediately and stride calmly to the frozen section (aisle 6) to station myself.

I stood there waiting for him, hearing the door opening, the bell jingling, Clyde greeting him, his nervous footsteps. It was all calculated, and I saw it unfolding perfectly in my head before any of it took place. In my head he arrives in aisle 6, his face smiling shyly when he sees me. He's doing the twitching thing, making his squeaky little noises, but he's not nervous, he's _happy_ to see me, and he runs over, a twirl or two in there, and stops by my side, admitting how stupid and wrong he'd been in the past few days, shouting his name to the heavens (in my reverie, his name is Yaroslav) and all our memories spill back into me. I remember that I'm actually a Russian prince named Vladmir that was split from my family during the Russian Revolution, and he is my manservant, and he whisks me back to Russia where stupid people are considered illegal and everyone _likes_ the movies I make, and it's glorious, _glorious, _end film, roll credits_._

It would be a long time before I would realize how ridiculous that all sounded, more ridiculous than my typical daydreaming, but at the time I just didn't care. The only thing that stopped me from seeping into bad-sequel territory was that, as my ears followed Yaroslav's approaching footsteps, I noticed they had stopped short and were coming from the wrong aisle. I moved forward, craning my neck to glance back into aisle 5, and there he was, poised between the ketchup and relish, standing on his toes to reach a jar of pickles that was too far above him for his royal shortness to reach.

After feeling slightly annoyed by the detour to my plans, I reasoned that _this_ could work too. I started toward him, my brain already producing illusions of him spinning around to see me and accidentally blurting out, "my lord!" and my whole Russian prince identity rolling out of him like a red carpet. That's when, in the reflection of the light, I instantly noticed the thin puddle of water beneath his feet. I realized I had forgot to put up the "Caution: Wet Floor" sign before I'd abandoned my post.

This also worked.

"Hey, be careful, the floor is wet," I said, walking over and patting myself on the back internally for what a great opener of a conversation this could be.

I underestimated whom I was dealing with, though, because he didn't respond to my warning calmly, didn't thank me and handle the situation delicately, didn't fall to his feet and bow to me and announce that the tzar had returned. He became startled by the suddenness of my voice and shrieked, stumbling backward and _out_ of the puddle. His fingers loosened on the jar he'd finally retrieved and it started careening to the floor.

I don't know why I decided to be a hero at the time as I dashed forward, attempting to catch the falling pickles. In my head, though, the situation worked out quite well. I catch the damn thing like a fucking ninja, throw a dive roll in there, maybe a backflip. It'd be cool if something exploded too, and I whip on some shades, walk off into the sunset, roll credits. I'm also played by Harrison Ford. That's how it went in my _head_ though, which is the important part, since few things in my head ever comes to fruition. In reality, the moment I had my fingers around the jar was the same moment it connected with the floor. I didn't save it. On the contrary, it actually shattered, sending glass in a million directions, but most importantly into my hands. In addition, my sneakers skidded on the wet floor and I _fell_, scrapping my _arm_ on a painful mixture of glass and pickle juice.

The kid screamed again as this was happening. I wanted to scream, too, out of pain, but I feared that this would frighten him more, and he already looked like he was a hair away from a freakin' heart attack, so I didn't. I just hissed and eased to my feet, struggling to drag myself away from the accident spot and tenderly clutching my aching arm.

Clyde finally appeared at the end of the aisle, looking worried and stunned. "What happened—whoah." He was staring at me, and in the kind of gentle tone of voice one would use in order to not provoke a nearby Grizzly bear, he said, "Craig, dude. You're bleeding," like I had _no idea_.

Meanwhile, blondie was having a panic attack, and I think the mention of my physical condition from Clyde made the whole thing worse. "Oh G_od_, he's bleeding, oh my GOD! He's going to lose _so much blood_ and…and…he'll die! He'll DIE, oh _jesus_! I killed you! _Gahh!—_ I killed you, oh _God!_"

"I just need to get the glass out and wrap it up, spazz," I interjected quickly, interrupting his anxiety attack. "I'm not going to die."

"I don't know, that is a _lot_ of blood."

"Clyde!" I snarled when the boy continued to freak out.

"First aid! I'll be back!" He ran off.

The kid was by my side almost immediately. "Ack! Oh God, uh, do you want to…d-do you need help?"

I didn't really, but if it got him to stick around, I'd act like a goddamn war victim. "Yeah, just sitting down. Can you help me to the register?"

He nodded frantically, swooping in to cling to my good arm and help guide me in that direction, and while my leg felt fine, I started limping anyway. Once I eased down into a sitting position with my back against the wall of the register, he flung himself down beside me, clutching my arm and beginning to extract the bigger shards with his own hands.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, oh _Jesus there's so much blood! _Aghh, I'm sorry, sorry, sorrysorrysorry oh, _GOD!" _He continued to mutter apologies over and over. I kept telling him it was okay, just an accident, but he didn't ease up, so I stopped trying after awhile.

Clyde eventually showed up with the first aid kit, and the kid insisted on tending to me all by himself. Clyde thought that was great, and reminded me that I had to mop up aisle 5 when my wounds were bandaged up, before returning to his magazine. I flipped him off with my good hand.

The apologies from the boy had long since subsided as he became immersed in his self-appointed duty, but he continued whimpering to himself as he extracted smaller and smaller pieces of glass. His face was near to my arm when he peered for shards, and he drew my hand close to himself when inspecting it. I could feel him shaking on every area where our skin connected, even his breath was shaky from where his mouth hovered over my hand, and I realized this is the closest we'd ever been.

"You know what would make me feel really good right now?" I said suddenly, milking the situation. "Since you busted a jar over my arm and everything?"

He bawled about a thousand apologies at that and I had to feign a moan of pain to get him to shut up as he scrambled around looking for antiseptic.

"What? _What?_ I'll do _anything_!" His eyes were big and remorseful.

I glanced at him smugly, enjoying his eagerness to please. "A name."

The look of innocence and regret wiped clean from his face as he instantly furrowed his brow and pursed his lips. He suddenly applied the antiseptic to my arm, _hard_, and I bit back a genuine groan of agony. "Anything _but_ that."

"Dude, what the hell is your problem?" I demanded, getting mad now since my pain had just about doubled. "Why can't you just _tell me_?"

"Because it shouldn't be that simple!"

"Give me a break, my memory is _shit!"_

He jerked, mouth opening as if he had a particularly nasty retort for me, but he bit his lip instead, pouting and frowning like I had just personally offended him and he was being the better man by not responding. No matter how pissed I got at him, the pouty/lip-biting thing he was so fond of doing was like a goddamn kryptonite to me, one I had no way of standing a chance against, and as such it was a far superior thing for him to do than if he'd said anything at all.

It made me want that name more than ever.

At that same moment, the door to the store exploded open, startling all three of us (most importantly, though, it startled the kid, causing him to squeeze my arm and send a shock of pain shooting throughout my whole body, so that when he screamed, I screamed, but not for the same reason). Only Clyde was in a position to see who it was, but that hardly mattered when the customer let us _all_ know who he was within seconds.

"Kid, where you at?"

It was Kenny.

The boy jumped in surprise again, likely because he knew he was being addressed.

I, meanwhile, could only clutch at my temples and groan. I felt like Ebenezer Scrooge, and every consecutive boy from the golden foursome was an increasingly more terrible ghost of Christmas.

It didn't take long for that poor bastard to find us, considering he could see Clyde, who was peering over counter down at me and the boy. I heard him wandering over and soon he was standing before us, ratty jeans and same dirty orange sweater and all. His hair was long, falling into his face and covering half of it. The lower half of his face was usually just as concealed, since he wore a brown bandana over his mouth about ninety-percent of the time. He used to tighten the hood of his sweater in order to achieve the same affect (which was making it a bitch for others to figure out what he was saying) but when it had gotten too small for him, he found the bandana in a Goodwill box and made do with it.

It usually made him look like a Thanksgiving-colored outlaw from a cowboy film (I told him that once and for a month straight he actually wore a cowboy hat with the bandana), but at that moment, the brown cloth was hanging loosely around his neck, draping over his collar bone and making it refreshingly easy to discern what he was saying when he greeted us with, "Hey you guys, what's going on?"

Then he really looked at us, or _me_ to be specific, and his cheerful disposition faltered. "Dude, who cut you?"

I pointed at the kid, who shrieked when I did. No matter how hilarious I found his reaction, I had to tell him I was just kidding, he didn't _cut me_, it was an accident, or else he would have kept blubbering about me dying and him going to jail and becoming some inmate's girlfriend.

"Wow, kiddo," Kenny whistled, still eyeing me, "you really did a number on Craig."

"I didn't mean to!" He tugged at his hair.

"I know you didn't, buddy." He nudged the boy's hand to ruffle his head "You wouldn't hurt anybody on purpose, although lord knows you _can_." He grinned at me. "I tried feeling this guy up the same day he moved back here and he socked me so hard in the balls I thought I was going to be coughing up blood for weeks. Learned my lesson."

The boy clutched at his head again. "_Gahh! _I told you it was an accident! You startled me, man!"

The two continued talking about this, that, and the other as the boy absentmindedly tended my wounds. I could only sit there and glare coldly at the familiarity between the two, feeling like an outsider looking into a microcosm of warmth and smiles with this boy that I couldn't fathom.

Finally, Kenny said, "I better get going. I was on my way home, but I saw your bike outside, dude, and wanted to say hi." He gave me a friendly nod. "And Craig, you stumpy son-of-a-bitch, I didn't know you worked here! I'll have to stop by more often, we don't chill _nearly_ enough." I failed to mention that the reason for this is because he's fucking annoying, but I'm sure he was already plenty aware of that, since I usually said it every other time I was around him. He'd also taken to calling me Stumpy ever since he realized that I was just as exciting as a stump, and you imagine how well that sits with me.

"You'll be okay?" he continued, again addressing the boy, who nodded vigorously. "Cool beans. Oh, and did you want to walk with me to Stan's thing tomorrow?" The kid nodded once more.

"You're going to that?" I asked the boy incredulously.

He twitched, looking apprehensive. "Y-yeah."

"Are you, Craig?" Kenny asked.

"No way, dude, Craig hates that shit," Clyde added, grinning at me.

I know I said I didn't want to go and had once vowed to chop off my own legs before being caught dead at any of Stan's sporting events, but this new piece of information changed things entirely. I didn't know how long these things usually lasted, but if _he_ was there and I was there, that was at least another hour or two of opportunity to talk to him.

Before I could say anything further on this, though, Kenny suddenly interjected, "come on, Stumpy, you might as well. Even Tweek here is going, and he never goes to _anything_."

I froze. The kid…_Tweek_ froze. Even Clyde froze.

"Kenny!" the boy cried angrily after a long silence.

"What?"

"Tweek…" I said, testing the way it sounded coming out of me. It felt like I'd never forgotten it.

Kenny smacked himself in the forehead. "Right! You didn't want him to know! Shit, my bad!"

"So we're allowed to call you by your name now?" Clyde suddenly piped up. "I mean, since Kenny already did it and everything? Cuz let me tell you, dude, it was fucking _hard_ not knowing if Craig was going to hit me everyday if I didn't tell him."

I spun around so hard I pulled a muscle in my neck. "You _knew_?"

"He told me not to say anything!"

"You're a goddamn liar, Clyde Donovan, and when work is over I'm going to roll you down Phil Collins hill in a trashcan."

He winced painfully at the memory of the first time I did this (it was when I had asked him to watch my guinea pig while I was on vacation and, even though it had lived, he told me he hadn't fed it). "I didn't lie _completely_, we still don't really know each other! I just had a better memory with the name that you did!"

I shook my head, putting my issues with Clyde on the backburner as I turned back to the boy.

"Tweek. Your name is Tweek," I mused contemplatively.

He twitched, glancing back at me warily. "Y-yes..."

"No, no… Dude, I remember that name! I remember _you_! Man, I can't believe I _forgot. _I'm fucking hopeless."

Tweek—God, I loved that he wasn't Yaroslav anymore—he lit up, hope flooding his eyes, his breath hitching. "You do?"

"Yeah. Yeah! I mean, with the twitching and the coffee, what the hell—You…we went to school together! South Park elementary, the same class. And then you moved away. That's why I didn't remember you, that was like a million years ago, man! Third grade, right?"

Tweek stopped. "It was fourth grade."

"Oh, well. Same thing, right?"

He was silent, not twitching again.

"What's wrong?"

"_Erk—_what else do you remember?"

"Huh? I don't know… I think we had a fight in third grade. Something stupid and small?"

"Anything else?"

"Like what?"

"Anything!"

"I don't know! Is there something I should remember?"

After a pause, he suddenly shot up to his feet. "No, I guess not," he mumbled. Without looking at me, he turned around and quickly darted away. I heard the door's bell chime as Tweek forced his way out, followed by the sound of his bike as he sped away.

The remaining minute of awkward was unbearable.

"What the hell…?" I finally said. "Is he constantly PMSing, or what?"

"Tweek gets easily frustrated, but I've never seen him that mad," Kenny murmured, gazing quizzically at the door. "What'd you do to him, Stumpy?"

"Hell if I know. That little piece of crap won't give even me the time of the goddamn day so I can find out."

"Maybe you owe him money!" Clyde offered. I reminded him that I was still going to roll him downhill in a trashcan and he said no more after that.

A few minutes later, Kenny finally left, telling Clyde he'd see him tomorrow and telling me that he _better_ see me tomorrow, because apparently he "missed his little stumpy." It was a good thing Tweek had left before he finished bandaging my arm, otherwise I just might have stabbed Kenny.

I finished up tending to myself (it took a long time because I had no idea what I was doing and the damaged hand was my dominant one), ended up cleaning the mess in aisle 5, and before long, it was eight again. As we parted ways outside, I told Clyde I was going to give him a rain check on his punishment at a time when he would least expect it (he demanded to know if I was planning it for the night of prom and I said nothing).

"Did you want a ride to Stan's meet tomorrow, by the way?" he added before I was too far away to miss what he'd said.

"Who said I was going to that?"

"Well, are you?"

I didn't want to commit to an answer so I told him I'd think about it and call him later if I changed my mind.

My sister was standing eagerly by the front door when I got home. I would've hit her with the door if she hadn't stepped out of the way in time.

"How long were you…?" I asked, pointing at her and pointing at the door curiously.

"You come home at the same time every day, I _just_ got up." For good measure, she added, "don't worry, you'll never be that special of a snowflake."

She watched me expectantly.

I sighed. "I got a name."

Then she did something extremely unlike her and _squealed_, clapping her hands and bouncing on the balls of her heels. It was like she'd won a goddamn award. "Congratulations! You're not as much of a failure as you've lived up to becoming!" She ran around behind me, suddenly pushing on my back and steering me into the kitchen. "Ice cream for dinner! Tell me everything!"

And when I did (tell her everything, I mean), she was so unbearably pleased that it made _me_ feel like a winner.

Her final words to me were, "who cares if he got mad? This is exciting! You gotta keep at him!"

As I got into bed later, actually feeling pretty good, I noticed my cellphone sitting next to me on my bedside table. I hesitated a moment, then picked it up and sought out Clyde's number.

_Get me at 10 exactly or that trashcan is going to be on fire_, I texted him, then stuffed my phone into my hat, set my alarm for 9:30 AM, rolled over, and fell asleep.


	4. Association

No matter how often the case occurred, I didn't usually enjoy sitting in the passenger seat whenever I rode in a car with Clyde. There were probably a million reasons why this was so, and you can take your pick off any one of them: he drives too goddamn fast, his seatbelts barely work, it's a pain in the ass to roll down the windows.

The most obvious reason, though, presented itself to me again when he'd pulled up to my house Saturday morning and I'd slid into the car, buckling my seat belt and glancing warily into the almost creepily cheerful smile he wore. At the time I was thinking, _well so far so good, I guess._

This thought lasted no more than three seconds, though, because my brain suddenly registered the sounds blasting out of the car's speakers, and I vowed, on the spot, to never get my hopes up about this ever again.

"I thought this was done on Wednesday," I said, attempting to remain calm as I raised my voice a few notches over the sounds of autotune and pop beat. I couldn't even figure out whom the hell we were listening to today, that's how generic Clyde's brand of music is.

"Heh, sorry," Clyde replied, still grinning, "it's the radio! You can change the station, there's a bunch of presets!"

He didn't need to tell me twice, so I did as he advised, punching the numbers on the radio's dash until I realized that no matter which button I pressed, the song didn't change.

"Dude, these are all the same station!"

Clyde then cackled as if he'd been holding it in the whole time. "Exactly. My car, my music!"

Well of course I was not going to have any of that, so without hesitation I reached out to switch the station with the knob this time, but Clyde made a very bold move and slapped my hand away. When I reflexively punched him in the arm for that, the car lurched dangerously to the left as he lost control of the wheel and we almost crashed into a pole. I decided this was one of the few times where punching Clyde was not going to solve my problems.

It was rare moments like these where I sincerely wish I had acquired a license already. But I couldn't worry about that right now.

Hands gripping my knees in muted agony, I quickly mulled over some alternate options in my head: I could sit here and listen to this crap for all fifteen minutes it took to get to school, fight with Clyde over it and potentially get us into an accident (I could totally see him taking both hands off the wheel to wrestle over the controls with me), or I could cut my ears off. Each of these outcomes seemed to expel the same amount of energy and none of them sounded more appealing than the others (except perhaps the last one). Not completely happy with any of them, then, I spontaneously created a fourth option for myself: when the car finally came to rest at a traffic light, I unbuckled my seatbelt, tugged open my car door, slipped out of the vehicle, and began walking.

For all the sensitivity that I lack (and all the apathy that takes up that empty hole in my body), I think Clyde possesses more than enough for a normal person. It's like in whatever factory the two of us were made in, some assembly line worker failed to give me the ability To Give A Shit and had instead given my share to Clyde. Because, I'm not going to lie, if I was the one driving and Clyde had jumped out of the car like that because I wouldn't let him change the radio station, I would not only have kept driving, but I also would have slowed down to make it seem like I was letting him back in, then driven off as he tried to get back in the car.

But not Clyde. I probably walked for about a block and a half while he slowly crawled along beside me with his window rolled down, promising me various things if I would just get back in the car. He'd already long since guaranteed that I could change the station, but, while I didn't want to walk, really, the only reason I kept up for so long was because I wanted to see how many things I could get out of him for as long as I could. The second he promised to buy me lunch, dinner, _and_ babysit my sister if I would just _please get back in the car_, I finally relented and slipped back inside.

We listened to the country music station all the way to school. Clyde whined about it, ("I haaate country! Just because your dad listens to it doesn't mean you have to like it, too!") but I threatened to get out of the car again if he didn't shut up. Honestly, it was bad enough I had had a hard time that morning just deciding whether I wanted to go through with all this in the first place, but Clyde didn't need to make the experience _going there_ awkward and annoying, too.

9:30 had been alarmingly early (pun intended) for a boy with as terrible a memory as mine to wake up at on a Saturday morning when he didn't have to work that day. It was irritating, especially when I remembered why I was up that early in the first place (a sporting event? A _school_ sporting event? A _Stan Marsh_ school sporting event? What is this.) It had taken my sister literally rolling me out of bed to get me moving, but even after I'd showered and stood half-naked in front of my mirror, staring blankly at my reflection, I still couldn't believe I was going through with this.

Clyde had ended up showing up about forty-five minutes later than I'd expected him, which was just plain tormenting because it meant I got to spend more time rethinking my decision. I must have taken off and put on the same shirt about ten times, all while switching between reasoning, "this is stupid, you hate Stan, don't go," and, "it'll only be a few hours. Tweek will be there, that's why we're going, remember?" and "he doesn't even like you, dumbass," and "maybe showing up today will change his mind," and so forth, etcetera etcetera.

I was sitting quietly, not really listening to the station (which had made our argument pretty useless in the first place) attempting to convince myself that this was _not_ the world's worst idea, when Clyde finally pulled up into the school's parking lot and came to a stop in a space that took us eight minutes to find. The minute the car shut off, he jumped out, screaming, "last one there is turd sandwich!" and ran off giggling like a retard.

I calmly opened up the door, stepping out gingerly and strolling at a leisurely pace toward the school's football stadium, even as Clyde's wildly flailing figure got smaller and smaller as it sprinted away.

It was about ten minutes later before I reached the bleachers. Clyde's already up there, huffing and puffing, chatting it up with the people I hate most in the world yet had to spend the next hour or so socializing with. They're all sitting together, I observe, near the top but not _too_ close to the top. It was still too high for _me_, anyway, considering their distance from the bottom forced me to walk by a slew of my classmates just to get to them. Now everyone would know I was here. I had a goddamn reputation as the resident school grump, the equivalent to a bridge troll you left alone because he's so pissy looking, and roaming around in broad daylight like this was certainly not helping me maintain that image.

I stomped forward and up the stairs, flipping off staring onlookers as I strode by them. The group I was aiming for was sitting in the order of Cartman, Kenny, Kyle, Tweek, and then Clyde. Next to Clyde, to my greatest discomfort, were a bunch of other kids I knew: Kevin Stoley, Jason Miller, Heidi Brown, Millie Thompson, Jimmy Valmer. On Cartman's other side were Bebe Stevens, Wendy Testaburger, and Butters Stotch. I groaned. There were _so many people_ and few that didn't annoy the crap out of me for whatever reason.

Clyde waved stupidly at me when he saw me, like we hadn't already just made eye contact. I rolled my eyes at him, excusing myself past Bebe, Wendy, and Butters, then shoving directly into Lardo as I tried to make my way over.

Of course, Lardo being Eric Cartman, he tried to trip me. I managed to step high enough over his leg with my first foot, but he got me on my other one and I ended up stumbling a little, mostly into Kenny's shoulder. The poor bastard in subject glanced at me and, even though I couldn't see his mouth, the crinkling in the corner of his eyes told me he was giving me an all-too familiar cheeky grin.

I hated Kenny's smiles. They were like bad omens.

I saw his hand reach for his bandana with the intention of tugging it down and I knew something annoying was about to come out, (most likely rhyming with "bumpy") and possibly something lewd. I swear, usually every other word out of his mouth was like, "titties" or "penis", but it'd been a whole twenty-four hours and I hadn't heard either from him, which was pretty commendable. Nonetheless, I shot him a very intense glare before he managed to grab a hold of his bandana and growled, "don't _fuck _with me today." He saluted to me and placed his hand back into his lap.

Straightening, I continued walking across him, then Kyle, and finally stopped to the right of Tweek, who was apparently pretending he couldn't see me, from what I could gather. No matter how hard he attempted to keep his eyes focused on the field, though, I knew _he_ knew I was there. There was no way to _not_ see me, and he was being extra fidgety and nervous.

I sighed, rolling my eyes and maneuvering past him.

"Shove over, dude," I muttered to Clyde.

He stared at me quizzically, probably wondering why I needed to sit there of all places when there was plenty of room elsewhere. When he didn't move right away, I simply sat down in the inch of space between him and Tweek, causing him to quickly jerk to the side to avoid being squashed.

When I plopped myself down between the two, Tweek on my right and Clyde on my left, I found myself snuggly brushed up against both of them. Once this contact was made, I immediately felt the shoulder to my right go starkly rigid. I smirked.

As nice and comfortable as _I_ was, when I turned to stare at Tweek, I watched his face struggle to maintain some minimum of composure. There was no hiding how anxious and twitchy he was being, though; he was nervous as hell. I'd yet to wrap my head around how weird he was around me, but I couldn't help but feel a strange sort of power from being able to affect him like that without even doing anything. Without having ever done _anything_ to him.

I leaned in close.

"Hello—" I started before taking a deep breath and finishing with, "—_Tweeeeek_," drawling and dragging out his name in a tone of pure triumph, loving the ability I now had to finally be able to address this kid.

" Oh, _Jesus!" _he cried, composure shattering as he tugged at his hair and shuddered against me.

I casually leaned back into the bench behind ours. "Jeez, can you chill out? You're going to give yourself a heart attack." And though that was what I had said, in all reality I actually _liked_ his weird little outbursts. They were more funny than annoying, I had been surprised to discover.

"Well, he was doing just fine until you got here," Clyde mumbled beside me. I gave him a look, like this conversation clearly wasn't meant to contain him.

"Do I get a hello?" I continued, glancing at Tweek again.

"Shut it, Craig!" Cartman bellowed four people away. "This crap is hard enough to follow without you talking over it!"

I would've flipped him off, but Tweek had been making small nods while Fatso was bitching me out, and I knew when to take a hint. I followed everyone's gaze to the field, then, and attempted to maintain some level of interest. Then I realized had no idea what the hell was going on. There were people running around the track and people throwing things and people jumping over things and I couldn't tell who anyone was or who the announcers were talking about or if anyone was actually _winning_.

Of course, my mind was gone within the first five minutes or so. I was kind of glad that Clyde had been late picking me up this morning, then, since it cut out about an hour of bullshitting my way through giving a crap about this stupid "sport". I don't know how long I could've lasted if I was expected to sit all the way through the allotted time this thing was supposed to go on for.

I yawned loudly and felt Tweek jerk against me again, as if he'd managed to forget I was sitting there and had been startled.

"'scuse me," I said, loud enough for him to hear me but quiet enough so that no one else could. With my eyes on the field, I leaned over to him again, muttering, "so, how are you?"

He stiffened again but said nothing. When I nudged him with my shoulder to prompt him to speak, he—I kid you not—_squeaked_, hands rushing to his mouth to stifle the sound.

"Dude, loosen up." I didn't mean that. His noises were growing on me, and this new one just took the cake. I don't know why I was reacting this way to him, but something about it felt natural, so I didn't fight it. "My hand is _fine_, by the way, in case you were wondering."

And for God's sake, he made that little squeak again, and I found myself clutching at the bench as if to control myself from who knows what. He did something that was far more distracting, though, when he suddenly grabbed my injured hand and peered at it closely. "Nghh, who bandaged this?"

"I did. You left remember?"

He did remember, but unfortunately with that memory came the reason for why he'd left, and he let go of my hand instantly, letting it fall back into my lap. "Sorry," he muttered curtly, turning back to the field.

"It's cool. I didn't lose too much blood, and, hey, I got what I wanted from _you_ anyway, right?" I teased through a mildly amused smile.

Tweek suddenly shot up out of his seat.

"I-I'll be back," he mumbled, glancing at everyone to his right when he said it. He stepped over our bench to the space behind it, then began walking toward the stairs.

I waited for someone to say something or at least acknowledge this, but no one else had seemed to care or at least notice that Tweek had said anything at all, let alone left, besides me. When I remembered that I'd come to this stupid thing because of _him_ in the first place and that he'd now left me with a group of people I very much had no interest in being alone with (except for Clyde, though he was guffawing it up with Kevin Stoley at the moment), I leaped up after him.

"Where are you going?"

Tweek froze halfway to the stairs and spun around to see that I was following him. He cried out slightly, grabbing at the hem of his shirt as he did. "_Gah!_ What are you—? Er…the bathroom! I said I'd be right back!"

"I'll come with you."

"What? Why?" He shook his head furiously, looking like a squirrel or chipmunk or something when he did. "No! I don't _need_ you to…to _escort_ me to the bathroom!"

I couldn't help but smile at this. It was just such a ridiculous comment, but not in the annoying sort of way. More the _funny_ sort of way. "I'm not 'escorting' you, loser," I responded, taking care to imitate his voice when quoting him. "I need to go, too."

"Agh! That's too much pressure!"

I stared at him. "How…how is that too much…? What?"

Tweek twitched again, now looking significantly more annoyed than nervous. He exhaled angrily through his nose, muttering, "f-_fin_e," before turning around and continuing to walk off.

Certainly not deterred by any of his obvious irritation, I followed.

Tweek was walking quickly ahead of me, and you'd have to be an idiot not to see that he was obviously attempting to lose me. My eyes are trained on him, though, so I was able to catch him when he made a very deliberate turn away from the Porta Potties and steered himself in the direction of the school itself.

"Hey, Tweek," I called to him, even though he was a good yard away. "The school is closed. There are, like, outhouses or whatever over there—"

To my surprise, however, the moment he reached the school's entrance he suddenly produced a ring of keys from virtually nowhere. Within seconds he had the door open and was pushing his way inside. I increased my pace to a jog and quickly caught up to him, pushing against the door even as it began to close against me.

I opened it to find him facing the entryway, watching it expectantly, and when he saw that I had managed to cross the threshold behind him, he uttered a disgruntled huff. The bathroom was right there by the door, so he moved to go unlock that, too.

"Dude," I said, watching him. "Why do you have keys to the school?"

" I'm friends with a janitor," he mumbled offhandedly, like that was nothing, _whatever_. "I promised I'd have it back to him when I'm done."

I didn't believe him.

"And you can't use the outside toilets?"

"No way, man!" he cried, grabbing at his shirt once he got the door unlocked. "How do I know who was using it before me? Does anyone clean them? All that junk just…sitting in there? Where does it all go? It's bad enough I have to use a public bathroom, I don't wanna use one of—_gah!"_

Not wanting to hear another freak-out lecture for the follow-up questions I could have easily asked, I gladly accepted his answer, sighing and pushing him into the bathroom before following behind him.

Tweek turned on the light, and then, for a long moment, the two of us just stood there. I wasn't sure why he wasn't doing anything, and for that matter, I wasn't sure why I wasn't doing anything, either.

"…Did you want help or something?" I offered suddenly.

"God, no!"

"Then why the hell are you just standing there?"

"I…I have to pee!"

"So take your piss!"

"I can't!"

"Why not?"

He grabbed at his shirt again, avoiding eye contact as a faint shade of red colored his face. "N-not with…_you_ standing there!"

Realization hit me and I was flabbergasted. "Are you fucking kidding me? Have you never peed around other guys before?"

He looked half-insulted by that. "Of course I have!"

"So what's wrong with _me_?" I was shouting then, though I didn't realize it at the time. It was interesting, since I _never_ raise my voice.

I wasn't prepared, though, when the next word out of his mouth was, "everything!"

I was quiet after that. It wasn't that I was offended, honestly; I was just a little stunned by his frankness and unsure of how to react to it. After some silent deliberation, I figured he didn't actually mean what it sounded like he'd said. Because, well, no one's _that_ much of a tactless asshole…except me, of course.

"Let me guess," I tried again. "It's weird because you don't know me that well?" Which actually still didn't make much sense to me, because that would mean that he basically was uncomfortable peeing anywhere outside of his own home. And unless he was on familiar terms with the entire school population, there was a very small chance that he would ever make it to the bathroom at the same time as all his friends.

A very curious look flashed in Tweek's eyes for a split second, not long enough for me to analyze it, before he nodded crazily. And despite how nonsensical my explanation was, I chose not to push the issue any further. I didn't want to force him to be uncomfortable, after all.

"I could wait outside until you're done!" he offered. "Then we could trade?"

"No, no, that's stupid." I pointed at the stall. "I'll just pee in there. Whatever."

He nodded again and I strode past him to the handicap stall, locking the door behind me.

After I unzipped my pants, I commenced doing my business, the echo of my peeing filling the entire empty bathroom so it sounded like a thousand people were taking a piss at the same time.

"So…uh, Tweek," I started to say. I figured this moment was already plenty awkward, so saying this right now couldn't possibly make it any worse. "We should hang out some time. Y'know. Cuz. You seem kinda cool." I was wrong. It sounded a thousand times more awkward than it had seemed in my head.

I finished my peeing and the entire bathroom was still. I waited a moment, not receiving a response.

"What, don't like _talking_ in the bathroom, either? That too weird for you?"

More silence.

"Look, dude, you can say no, too, like if you hate me or something. I'm kind of getting those vibes."

I expected him to scream something ridiculous again at this point, but when nothing happened, I actually began to get worried. I wouldn't have put it past the kid to have found a way to knock himself unconscious while peeing.

I quickly zipped up my pants, pushing through the stall door and assuming to see him on the other side.

He wasn't there.

I almost—_almost_—ran out of the bathroom without washing my hands, but I did, don't worry. But as soon as I was done, I was out of there, goddammit.

Can I just mention for a second how downright creepy it is to be alone in a high school for second? And I'm talking _completely_ empty; I'd been here on weekends for Saturday school and shit like that, but that's not the same because there's other kids here and the teachers are here and the janitor is here and all that. This wasn't like that, especially since the damn place was locked before we'd come in here. I mean, I know I wasn't completely alone since Tweek was here somewhere, but he wasn't in my immediate line of sight so it wasn't anywhere near the same.

It _was_ creepy. Even in broad daylight. All the lights are off so the hallways are dark and they look extra long and almost _undisturbed_. The typical hustle and bustle I was used to on a normal basis is gone, replaced by an eerie silence that's almost palpable. I began walking past classrooms, staring into the windows and seeing no one there, like everyone just simultaneously disappeared out of thin air. It was like an apocalypse had occurred.

Like a _zombie_ apocalypse.

And then it _was_ a zombie apocalypse. Suddenly the walls were molded and crumbling, the air was dank and smelled putrid. Besides the undeniable silence, there persisted a queer ringing somewhere untraceable. I stepped over bits of dirt and debris and the occasional dry bloodstain, and every step I took reverberated throughout the halls, sounding louder than normal. I held my breath, expecting an unholy army of the undead to round the corner, dragging half-severed ankles and reaching out for me with decaying fingers and grim expressions that tell me they're only after one thing. And then they did come, they were coming _right at me_, and I had yet to pick up a shotgun so I about-faced and ran down a different hallway and thought, _please let there be a dead cop in here somewhere_.

For the record, it only played out this way in my head because that's how zombie movies tend to work; there's always some idiot running around who's unarmed and doesn't have a clue what he's doing. I should know; zombie movies are my favorite, and my dream is to have my breakout hit _be_ a zombie movie. However, rest assured that if I really were in a zombie apocalypse, I would have been prepared. I've read the survival guidebook. Actually, Clyde _made_ me read the guidebook since I know there never _will_ be a zombie apocalypse so it didn't really matter to me whether I read it or not, but I'm ready all the same.

It was a good thing I changed my hallways, though, because in a few minutes I found Tweek again. He was standing in front of a row of lockers, running his fingers across different dials, contemplating each one with an intense concentration. He's not twitching, I noticed. He's also a zombie. There was crusted blood all over his skin and his clothes were tattered and he was missing half of his arm and he was groaning with each move he made.

Not really, of course, but when my imagination is on a roll, it's on a roll, so I walked over to him, ignoring anything that had to do with him and the lockers, and declared, "oh, God, Tweek, they got you too, oh _shit_." I would like to note that were he really a zombie I would never have said this, because that would be stupid and ridiculous and the type of thing that gets you bitten, killed, and undead.

The sudden sound of my voice caused him to jump about three hundred feet in the air, give or take a few feet, and his shriek bounced up and down the hallway a few times so that it returned to us even before he was done shrieking it. "What? Who?_ Who's got me?_" He was biting his fingernails and darting his eyes about, clearly terrified.

"The zombies, man."

If he looked terrified before, he looked goddamn near petrified at this point. "Z_ombies?_ Oh my _God_, where?"

"Everywhere, dude, it's the freakin' apocalypse. They're all over the school and they got you."

He frantically ran his hands all across his body. "They did? I didn't even notice! Oh my god, they got me! I have to run away! No, _you_ have to get away from me! I might bite you! Oh god, you might have to shoot me! Don't shoot me, Craig, _erk—_I still have so much to live for!"

This kid was amazing. I wanted to hang out with him forever. "You don't have anything to live for. You're dead."

"_I'm dead?"_

"Dude, you're a zombie, of course you're dead. But it's okay. I won't shoot you. And I won't run away." I held out my arm. "Bite me."

"_Why?_ You'll turn into a zombie!"

"That's okay. This way you won't have to be alone and then I won't have to run around fearing for my life. I bet we could take on the entire damn world and turn everyone to zombies without dying _once_. Besides, I've always wanted to be a zombie. Better you turn me than some faggot like Clyde."

He wanted to protest, I could feel it coming, but I knew that he was also mulling over how flippin' awesome my idea sounded. "Er, okay," he said finally, putting on what I supposed was his brave face (similar to my excited one, since it looked like he never used it very often) and it was quite possibly one of the cutest damn things I'd ever seen on another boy, just because he looked like he was trying so hard. I was almost not bothered by how cute I was finding another boy to be, that's how cute it was. Puppy-cute, not I'd-like-to-get-in-your-pants-cute, but cute all the same.

I held my arm up again and he stared at it tentatively for a moment, very seriously. Then he leaned forward, glanced apologetically at me for one last second, then clutched my hand and my elbow, his mouth hesitating over my wrist. My breath hitched in my throat, and I forgot that we were playing pretend here. This was way too close than I was used to, way too close than I was expecting, but this unpredictable boy was keeping me from pulling away. I was curious to see how far he was going to go with this. So I watched him, and he moved closer, his breath ghosting over my arm. He wrapped his lips gently around my wrist, I felt the warmth and wet of his mouth, and then he bit down on my skin…_hard_.

"_FUCK!" _I bellowed, jerking my arm out of his mouth and waving it around like an idiot.

"_Gah! _I'm sorry! I figured the virus was supposed to go into your bloodstream to make it quicker, so I was trying to draw blood—"

I held up a hand to stop him from talking. The pain had since subsided, though his teeth marks were still present on my skin. "No, it's okay. Dude, you're way too good at this game, you really had me going."

"G-game?"

"Yeah, zombies. Heh, I don't really _play_ games, I'm a grown boy, but I mean, it was just pretend, right? That was some pretty sweet acting."

"Pretend? So there aren't really zombies?" He looks even more horrified at this than when I told him that there were zombies.

"Yeah… Wait, you thought this was for real?"

He nodded furiously, looking slightly annoyed, and then I couldn't help it at this point. I had to laugh. I just _had_ to, you don't understand. I doubled over on myself and cackled, my shoulders heaving and my lungs giving up, just _laughing_.

"Fuck you! You don't have to be an _ass_ about it, you lying jerk!" And then he socked me in the arm and it hurt like a motherfucker so I finally stopped my insane laughter, although a giggle or two still escaped me as I tried to talk again.

"N-no, sorry," I said, my words coming out in a chuckle as I wiped tears from my eyes. "I'm not making fun of you… Actually, yes I am, but not maliciously. Dude, I come over here pretending there are zombies in the goddamn school and you _believe me? _Not only do believe me, but you _bite_ me? Like for real? That's just…that's too fucking_ precious_." And that's the truth. I thought that was ridiculously adorable. His freak-outs were quirky enough, but this was just downright entertaining.

I pointed at him as he continued to fume. "You, my friend, are a keeper."

"Urgh, whatever. _You're_ an asshole."

I wish I could say I was done with the teasing thing because he obviously did not appreciate it, but then he started doing that pouty thing I like so much, and it really did not help his cause. It had the same effect on me that babies have on normal people, where you just want to coo and babble nonsensical shit at it. I hate babies and have never undergone this desire to turn into a bumbling moron at their very cuteness, but with Tweek's pouty face I had to actually bite my lip to resist that primal urge babies typically elicit. He was just so _mad._

When I finally got myself under control, I said, "aw c'mon, don't be like that. I was just kidding. Just for fun. I really did think it was cute. Trust me, this asshole thing grows on you, just ask Clyde."

He paused. Then, with an intense level of coldness, he muttered, "we're _not_ friends."

"I know that. I know we're not friends." There was that look in his eyes again, and I couldn't make sense of it, so I kept going. "But I'd like to be. Really." I took a step toward him and he took one back. "Even if you don't."

His pouty face fell and he looked at me with an emotion I couldn't place.

"You know, if this _was_ a zombie apocalypse," I continued, "I'd still let you bite me. I'd still be zombies with you. And I'd let you bite all the living people you wanted and I'd never let anyone shoot you and you wouldn't have to be afraid of anything ever again."

Except I didn't really say those things, because I would never say those things. That isn't me. That's weird and gooey and reeks of Clyde and it freaks me out, so I kept it inside, I kept it in the part of my brain that processed my imaginations, and instead I said, "what were you doing here by the lockers anyway?" so I never got to find out what would have become of the two of us if I'd said what I'd wanted to say.

"Nothing," he replied.

"I doubt it."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, not much, I just think it's interesting that you, with the track record you so proudly possess, opened a locked school with the pretence of using the bathroom, only to not use the bathroom and instead ended up over here twisting locker locks." I didn't know why I was saying those things. I guess I felt like if I kept talking about anything, those weird thoughts of mine wouldn't pop up anymore.

"I did use the bathroom! Not my fault you can't hear anyone but yourself!" Something told me he was talking about more than just the sound of my peeing.

He suddenly shoved past me, stomping toward the exit. I followed him.

"Why are you _so grouchy_?" I foundnd it ironic that I of all people would ask such a thing of someone else.

"Since when do you care?" he shouted over his shoulder.

"Uh, duh, I've totally cared about you this entire damn time, in case you haven't noticed!" My mouth slammed shut instantly, knowing exactly what that sounded like.

Tweek spun around then, his face alight and his eyes burning. "_No_, you never care. About anything. Least of all about me. You're just curious, because I'm this weird twitchy kid that steals shit, am I right? Am I interesting Craig? Am I _adorable_? Wanna make a _movie_ about me? Just this quirky little stranger you wanna play pretend with? You think you know me so well, but you can't remember a damn thing about me. That how much you care?"

When he said those things, I realized Tweek knew more about me than I knew about him, more things than I would ever let on to a person I'd just met, and I actually become _embarrassed_. There is no doubt about it: we had a history. I could no longer ignore that.

He'd turned and left, pushing out the door long before I was able to react again. I thought I had had plenty of time to run after him, but then I remembered he had to lock the door to the school, and I wouldn't have put it past him to lock me in there. I charged out after him, only to find the key ring hanging on the door with the correct key stuck in the lock and Tweek darting farther and farther away.

That was…smart, actually.

As I turned to lock the school, he got far ahead of me. He was already ducking underneath the bleachers by the time I managed to run after and catch up to him.

I grabbed the back of his shirt to get his attention, and he spun around, glaring defiantly at me.

"Look, I get your beef with me, dude," I said, glancing sideways. "There's…there's something between us, right?"

He stared at me for a long moment, calculating my sincerity, then nodded, albeit a bit reluctantly.

"Well, then I'm…" I bit back the word before letting it tumble out of me, "I'm _sorry_. I'm sorry that I can't remember what it is, this _thing_ we have. My memory sucks. And it's been about, what, eight years since we last spoke? You need to give me a break, man, because I'm not doing this on purpose or anything, and I don't want to keep treating you like a stranger, cuz I get how that must feel. So a hint, a beginning. Kick me off. What are we?"

He glanced at the ground. "We are…we _were_ friends."

"Best friends?" I asked. I would have been pissed if my best friend had forgotten about me. I thought about Clyde and Token and just the thought that they would forget me makes me want to find them and beat them up (except Token was more likely to kick my ass).

"No. _Just_ friends." He emphasized a specific word in his statement, and that _look_ flashed in his eyes again.

"In the fourth grade."

"Well, in third grade, too, but yes."

"And you moved out of town in the fourth grade. You moved because…" I thought, long and hard. "Your parents." It was actually a guess, but I said it confidently.

"My _dad_. My dad had to move because of work. He sells—"

"Coffee."

He was surprised that I said this. "Y-yes. My dad sells coffee."

"I remember…you used to drink coffee a lot." And I honestly do this time. I thought about the time Clyde mentioned coffee ice cream, and it just made sense.

"Yeah, that was me. I still do drink it, but I drink tea a lot instead. The coffee makes me jittery, makes me…makes me paranoid. It's like drugs. It doesn't help me."

"It's just coffee."

" It's not just what's in the coffee, man! It's the addiction. It's any addiction. I'm susceptible to them a-and…" he paused. "Why am I telling you this?"

"Because we're friends."

"We _were_ friends." And that was all I got out of him before he remembered that he was annoyed and stormed off again.

I reached the bleachers again moments later, and this time Tweek was sitting between Kenny and Kyle. I didn't want to sit next to either Kenny or Kyle to get nearer to him. Perhaps he was worth the torture that would have been, but I figured I better give him his space, so I sat back down next to Clyde.

"Dude, where _were_ you? Did you fall in? You were gone with Tweek for like thirty minutes."

"There were zombies in the school."

"Shit, _seriously?"_ Clyde exclaimed, and for some reason it wasn't as cute when he believed me. Maybe because it was Clyde and he believes me because he's dumb like that.

"Yeah, you dumbass, _seriously_."

"Good thing I let you read the survival guidebook!" He turned to high-five Kevin Stoley next to him, who'd been listening to us the entire time, because that guy is a huge fucking nerd and _would_ read things like that. "Dude, we should totally have a zombie movie marathon again! Kevin hasn't seen _Fido_ yet!"

Stoley shrugged. "It looks stupid."

"You look stupid, man," Clyde retorted, and in that silly way that told you know he was trying to be funny. "Can you believe this guy, Craig?"

"I don't know, Clyde, you look stupid too."

Kevin laughed and Clyde pouted (also not quite as cute) and I ignored them both as Clyde plotted out another zombie movie night (which I inwardly was totally down for, since I can never get enough of Romero or watching _Zombieland _hundred times).

I was forced to sit there and stare at the field again, and it still looked like the same shit was going on since before I left half an hour ago. I supposed that didn't really matter, though, since I was barely paying attention. I was thinking about Tweek and our conversation, and, with a bizarre feeling rolling around in the pit of my stomach, I thought about when were playing zombie apocalypse, and it made me grin like an idiot.

My mind was so far gone that I didn't even notice when the whole event ended, (except I knew that even if I were paying attention, I wouldn't have been able to tell if it was over or not anyway). My only indication that it had in fact ended consisted of everyone around me suddenly talking loudly and getting up at the same time, and I hoped this wasn't like a half-time thing or something and that we were actually leaving.

"Oh, thank _God_, I don't know how much more I could've taken of that," Cartman moaned loudly, much to my delight.

"Shut up, fatass, you didn't have to come!" Kyle retorted, which was predictable. They fell to their typical bickering, and I let it fade into the background.

I followed Kyle out of our bleacher and down the stairs, and when we reached level ground again, I walked over to join Clyde (and Kevin, I guess, whose presence made me miss Token, who was still on vacation in Hawaii). The three of us immersed ourselves in the group that was Jimmy, Jason, Butters, and some other kids, following the group that was Kyle, Kenny, Cartman, and Tweek. I kept my eyes on the small green-clad frame that trailed in the back, gauging the way he reacted to things, interacted with his surroundings, how he simply _existed_.

"You are a _stalker_, if I ever saw one," a voice said beside me, and I glanced over. It was Kevin. Clyde was busy rambling off to Jimmy about the zombie marathon still; apparently he had a date and everything planned, based on what I was hearing.

"Oh? You know a thing or two about stalking, Stoley?" I shot back steadily and without hesitation.

He went red. I noted that in my head. I didn't really talk to this kid that much. Clyde adores him and tries to keep bringing him along when it's usually just Token, him, and myself, but it's awkward in the same way that it's awkward when a dude brings his _girlfriend_ around. We all have to change our group dynamics around this guy, so none of us are really act like ourselves. Anyway, besides that, I never interact with him, but I liked to keep tabs on the way most people react to me being a jerkass, and I wasn't particularly surprised to discover that he was your classic "I don't know how to deal with this so I'm just going accept looking stupid and stay quiet" type.

"My _point_," Kevin continued, avoiding my comment, "is that if you're trying to be friends with Tweek, you should probably try talking to him and getting to know him better instead of just staring at him like he's a piece of meat. You don't make friends with meat."

"What do you think I've been doing? It's not like he _wants_ to be—" I paused. "How do you know I want to be friends with him?"

Kevin accidentally shot Clyde a glance, and I realized these two were better friends than I had originally assumed.

"Well...next time Clyde wants to publicize my problems that I thought were mutually understood to be confidential, you tell him that Craig has a bench and some duct tape with his name on it. He'll know what I'm talking about."

Kevin stopped talking to me after that, which was just as well. If I needed a shrink for my issues with dealing with other people, I'd go to my sister. Or Token (speaking of which, did I mention that I miss him? He needed to be home already).

Stan eventually found us and everyone was either giving him high fives or bumping fists and saying loud happy things to him. I didn't remember or probably couldn't have told if he won, uh, whatever it is he does anyway, so I wasn't sure what to say when he walked over to me.

I took a wild stab at it, though, and tried, "uh, congratulations?" and hoped he didn't actually lose.

"Thanks, Craig!" Whew. Though it would have been funny if I'd just congratulated him for losing. "Glad you came! You too, Tweek, dude what's the occasion, you two?"

We exchanged a glance but neither the two of us answer.

It doesn't matter, though, because Kyle suddenly bursts into the conversation, clamping Stan on the shoulder and addressing Clyde. "Hey, guys, so the four of us drove here together, but we're taking Stan now, so there's not enough room in the car for all of us."

"Doesn't your car fit five people?" I pointed out.

"Yeah, but Cartman's ass takes up two seats."

"Ay!"

"Anyway, the point is that I need to dump someone on whoever else is driving."

Clyde, obviously, was one of the drivers, and being the sociable weirdo he is, he piped up immediately. "Ooh! I have a car! And room! It was just me and Craig!"

"Can I get a ride too?" Kevin said quietly.

"Me, Craig, and Kevin!"

I made a disgruntled noise. Clyde is more than enough noise and annoying for one car, I didn't need his nerdy BFF and anyone from Kyle's car to make it worse.

"I can ride with them," Kenny said suddenly, zipping forward from virtually nowhere. He was refastening his bandana around his face when he strode forward, and as soon as his hands were free, he instantly grabbed one of mine and laced our fingers. I sent a revolted look of pure hatred in his direction, and the look in _his_ eyes told me he was grinning under the brown cloth concealing his mouth. He also mumbled something that sounded distinctly like, "hey Stumpy," and I wanted to die.

Of course, _he'd_ be the obvious choice. Kyle was driving, Stan was going with Kyle, Cartman was not allowed anywhere near me, so that just left him. This hand-holding freak. We held hands once, _once goddammit_, on a field trip in the fourth grade, when it's completely acceptable for a straight boy to hold another straight boy's hand. Someone brought it up again later in the seventh grade, when it _wasn't_ acceptable for a straight boy to hold another straight boy's hand, and ever since Kenny learned that this memory irritated the crap out of me, he decided to do it as often and annoyingly as possible. It felt like every consecutive time he did this, I was growing less and less fond of having hands in the first place.

"Ay! Kenny! You can't leave me with these assholes!" Cartman protested.

Kenny mumbled something cheerfully, pointing at me.

"I don't care if you're holding hands with Craig! Get over here!"

"_Get off me_," I growled, clawing at his fingers. For someone who ate as little as Kenny did, I was impressed by the iron grip he had on me.

Kenny chuckled beside me, asking me something indecipherable and tightening his hold on me.

That's when I realized Kyle's car could only fit four people, which was why they were getting rid of one, so that meant that the fifth member of their group was…Tweek. Which made sense, I'd reflect later, since I remembered that yesterday Kenny had offered to take him with them to this thing, and I don't know why it never originally occurred to me. I glanced over at Tweek and he was hardly paying attention, instead twitching and making his noises and playing with his fingers.

Kenny followed my eyes, saw Tweek, and blinked curiously. He pointed at him. "Hmm?"

"Yeah, dude, _you_ go with them," Cartman sneered, shoving Tweek forward hard. He stumbled forward with a startled shriek, but shook his head viciously.

"No way, man! I don't want to ride with him!" And he looked right at me when he said this.

It was like a sharp sword going through my gut, and I was torn between my normal instinct to not care and this newfound urge to want to bash someone's head in (preferably Kenny's). I hoped to god that no one saw the briefest flash of emotion that surely crossed my face.

This entire ordeal was pretty pointless, though, because a few seconds later Wendy rushed forward to offer Stan a ride in her car. There was some weird miscommunication and Cartman and her get into a fight and somehow, by the end of it, _he_ ended up in her car, leaving Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Tweek to be an adequate number. Everyone was okay with this arrangement for some reason, so they all began to disperse in the general direction of their respective cars.

Kenny instantly released my hand and lifted the bottom of his bandana, revealing his lips as he started to walk away. "Too bad for you, Stumpy," he said snidely, smirking at me.

"Yeah, 'cuz I really wanted to be stuck in a car with you for fifteen minutes."

"Whatever, you think I'm awesome," he retorted, grinning still. "But I was actually referring to..." He threw a glance at Tweek.

I snorted. "Noooo, I don't get to ride in a car with a kid that hates me, woe is me. You're _really_ on to me, aren't you?"

"Oh, I'd love to be _on_ you, alright." I wanted to kill him. "And you want to be _on_ him." And then I really did try to kill him. "Dude I was joking, lighten up!"

But I was still seething, even after he walks away to join his friends.

Ten minutes later, I was in the backseat of Clyde's car. The only reason I ended up back there was because Kevin instantly declared, "shot gun!" the minute we hit the parking lot, and Clyde probably would've made him sit there anyway because after Kevin said that, he responded, "sweet! Craig loses stereo control!" and they high-fived. We were already about a minute and a half into our third Black Eyed Peas song (with both persons in the front singing along at the top of their lungs), and I wanted to drive a drill through my head.

"I miss Token," I mumbled, staring out the window. That's when I noticed that we'd missed the turn that took us to the residential area of town completely, and we were heading to the opposite side of South Park. "Uh, where are we going?"

"You didn't hear?" Clyde yelled over the music. "Stan's team is celebrating at Whistlin' Willy's!"

I almost didn't believe him until I saw the huge sign in the distance and Clyde turn on his signal light to get into the parking lot. "…What? You people still go to this shitty place? Aren't you a little too old—"

"Hey," Clyde declared, spinning around in his seat to give me a stern look. "There is nothing shitty about free pizza, okay?"

"Actually," Kevin suddenly added, and I'd forgotten he was in the car with us. "It's not free exactly, we all still have to pitch in like three bucks."

Clyde and I fell silent.

"It's just three dollars, guys, that's not so bad…"

"…I miss Token," Clyde said, and I nodded sagely in agreement. If Token were here, he would have been more than happy to shower his fabulous wealth upon his destitute best friends. Token could probably buy Whistlin' Willy's if he wanted to, so three dollars to him was equivalent to the rubber bands and paper clips average people like Clyde and I find in our pockets.

Clyde and I ended up talking and reminiscing about Token for another three minutes as if he'd died, and we probably would have kept talking about him if Kevin, who was left out of the conversation (I did this on purpose), hadn't actually got out of the car and walked to the entrance. The sound of the door slamming snapped us back to reality.

Stan's whole team was already there, taking up two of the biggest damn tables in the restaurant. Along with them was the group of people that Stan had traveled with and the group of people Cartman had traveled with and the other kids that had been sitting with us at the event and yet another huge group of kids from my class that I didn't remember seeing at the meet itself. I didn't realize this event had been that important, and I don't think I'd ever been around such a large group of people, like, ever. No wonder I never came to these things.

I slid into the empty space on the bench, next to Clyde, who tried talking to me. For once, I didn't _mean_ to be rude and not respond, but all the noise and lights and people here was too much for me. I sat in silence and ate a piece of pizza that had magically appeared right in front of me, my eyes roaming over the fifty or so kids that were with us. As if trained to find him, my eyes found Tweek instantly, way on the other end of the table, sandwiched between Kenny and Butters. I watched him carefully. He was eating his pizza, albeit anxiously like any second it might come to life and kill him. It was sausage. Meat.

You don't make friends with meat. That's what Kevin said.

About thirty minutes later, everyone was pretty much done eating and had dispersed to the arcade games. We had to pay for our own tokens, too, so I didn't even bother at this point (though the word "token" made me think of Token and I thought about the avalanche of tokens that Token would have gladly bought for me, and I was a little sad).

I stood idly by the skee ball, watching everyone walk by, and then I found Tweek again. He had been with Kenny last I saw him, but now he was by himself by the change machine, waiting for his tokens to come out. I moved, striding over to him.

"Let's talk," I declared, putting my hand out and grabbing all the gold coins as they fell from the machine and locking them in my fist.

He stared at me like a stern parent, and placed his hand out so I can give him his tokens.

"I want to talk. How are we going to be friends if we don't talk?"

"_Gahh!_—I don't want to _talk_! We're supposed to play games here!"

"Alright, let's play a game."

He makes an angry little noise. "You're not just trying to steal my tokens, are you?"

"Oh, no, I'm not the one who does the stealing around here," …is what I _wanted_ to say, because it was pretty perfect and he just about walked into that one. But I didn't want to be a complete asshole to this kid, not yet, not now.

Instead, I said, "just one game together. What do you want to play?" I glanced over across the way. There was one of those arcade games that you can sit in like a booth, with the curtains and the darkened glass. Usually it's the Jurassic Park game, but I saw that it was House of the Dead, and I nodded at it. "Zombies."

He didn't get a chance to respond when he turned to look at it because I grabbed his elbow and steered him over there, much to his half-hearted protests. I whipped open the curtain and saw Clyde and Kevin already in there, both with guns in their hands and shooting away at the screen to the sounds of dying zombies.

"Get out," I said.

"Dude, we're in the middle of a game!" Clyde growled, gesturing at the screen as if I couldn't see it.

I reached out and stole his gun, pointing it at the screen and wasting all his bullets on the floor as a zombie clawed at his character's face. Clyde was on his last life, so he was dead now. Kevin was much better at the game, though, so he still had all three lives and managed to kill every zombie in front of him without getting hurt. I reached over and took his gun, too, and did the same thing to his character.

"Look, you both died. Get out." I was already moving as if to sit on Clyde, so he scooted over, shoving Kevin along as he does. The two of them scrambled to get out of the booth, glaring at me and saying mean things, but when I dragged Tweek into the booth with me, I tugged on the curtain and shut out their stupid faces.

I handed him all his tokens, taking care to keep two for myself. He reluctantly accepted them, removing two like I did before he shoved the rest in his pocket. "One game with you," he said shakily.

"One game. Then we talk."

We stuck our coins into the machine at the same time, and the game started.

Tweek was already screaming ridiculously when we saw the first zombie, and he didn't stop after that. He had a new thing to say for each one that popped out, like, "GO BACK TO THE HELL YOU CAME FROM!" and "JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH!" and each word out of his mouth sounded more ludicrous than the last. I had to turn and bury my head in my arm in the corner of my side of the booth so he didn't see the stupid grin on my face. Every time I wanted to laugh, I had to bite my tongue hard, and it hurt like a bitch.

He ran out of two lives before we'd hardly dented the game.

"Gah! I don't want to play this anymore! I'm almost dead!"

"Okay." I put down my gun and I ended up losing a life.

"No!" Tweek protested. "Don't waste my fucking tokens! You can still play!"

"Fine." I kept playing, just like he wanted, but I wasn't really looking at the screen. I was facing him. "Let's talk, then, since you don't want to play."

"Aggh! Watch the screen!"

"It's cool." I shot about five zombies without taking my eyes off him. I knew how many I'd shot because the screen reflected in his big stupid eyes. "I play shooters like it's my goddamn job. What's your favorite color?"

He screamed as a zombie got dangerously close to me, but I shot at it, still watching him. "AHH! …_Erk!_—uhh…yellow."

"Yellow?" I shot a barrel and its explosion disintegrated four zombies. "I like blue. First pet."

"Ahh, uhh—" I'd reached the boss and fear flooded his face. "Wait, just…watch the screen first!"

"If you're so worried about me, you could play, too."

"What? No, dude, I died a long time ago!"

"No, you didn't"

He looked again and, sure enough, his character's last life was still displayed on the screen. "H-how…?"

"I told you: like it's my goddamn job." It's true. Sometimes I would go to arcades to play this game by myself, but pay for two players, just so I could use both guns or one gun to protect two players.

I hand him his gun again. "No need to thank me."

_I said I would protect you_. But I hadn't, I remembered, not out loud anyway, so I kept that inside, too.

We played for a good seven minutes or so. Tweek came close to dying about five times, but I saved him each time. He eventually did die, though, but only because he let himself. He sat back, watching me, and I realized this was no fun without him, so I let myself die, too.

"You could have beat him!" he said.

"I've already beaten this whole game. First pet."

"Uhh…I had a parrot once. His name was…Turtle."

I smiled. "I have a guinea pig. His name is—"

"Stripe, I know! Look, what are you trying to do?"

I was almost surprised that he knew that, but then I remembered that we knew each other once before and that me forgetting that was what made this a problem in the first place. That's why I was here.

I sighed.

"Tweek, I'm sorry that you thought I was making fun of you today at school. And I _was_, I'm not going to lie, but that's just 'cuz I make fun of everyone…" I paused. "But that's not the point! The point is that…when you _acted _like you were a zombie when I told you you were one…I liked that. Because…because I make up weird shit like that _all the time_. You don't even know. And usually when I do it, people think I'm weird, that I spend too much time imagining stuff and not enough time _doing_ stuff. But you…you didn't. You believed me. You could see _exactly_ what I was trying to say. I feel like…you _see_ things the same way I do.

"I don't remember you right now. I can't change that. But I want to be your friend. And I want to remember you. So if I get to know you now, brand new, maybe things will come back to me. And I promise you: I won't forget a goddamn thing this time."

Tweek was silent then, and I couldn't tell what his facial expression was because the screen had gone dark in the booth.

"So," I said, breaking the quiet (or as much quiet as there could be while the game continued to moan and scream in front of us). "Favorite movie."

He didn't respond right away, and I think it was because he knew that this is the million-dollar question for me. "_…_what's _your_ favorite movie, Craig?"

I was surprised he didn't have an answer prepared for this one. "I couldn't tell you my favorite," I admitted. "Don't really have one."

"I remember you like movies."

I was glad he did. I really was.

"I do. I really like zombie movies," I gestured to the game screen. "I like indie shit. And I like your typical stuff, _The Godfather_,_ Kill Bill_,_ Lord of the Rings_… I really like the _Indiana Jones_ series, too, except for that last one. Lucas is a goddamn sellout."

Usually I went off on this rant when Clyde and Token were around, and they hated it. I was expecting as much from Tweek.

But no.

"…I broke into his house once," Tweek said quietly. I barely caught the words, but caught them I do.

"Whose house?" I asked offhandedly, watching the way his fingers suddenly touched the machine's buttons nervously, as if, had they not been where they were, he would have been grabbing at himself like he typically did.

"George Lucas."

There was nothing in the entire world that could have prepared me for that. I could only pause, blinking down at him, before proceeding to voice (in a manner more condensed than the way it crossed my mind), "…what?"

"I—er, I broke into George Lucas's house?"

"No, no, I got that… I guess what I should have said was 'what the hell are you on where you would think that that would ever seem remotely true?'"

"_Gah_! It _is_ true! I did!" He was frowning now, looking both offended and defensive. "I didn't want to, though! Oh, Jesus, we could have _died_!"

He was making the situation sound so ridiculous that it ended up sounding truer the more he talked about it.

"We…?"

"S-Stan and Kyle and Cartman! They made me do it!"

"Well, that definitely sounds like them." And it definitely made his story 100% more credible—nobody believed me when I told them about my trip to Peru in the fourth grade, but that certainly happened. Crazy shit happened here all the time, with those morons at the heart of it all, so suddenly the thought of them forcing him to break into the house of a famous director seemed almost too tame for the shit they were usually up to.

Tweek had paused, thoughtfully. "I mean, what he did to Empire Strikes Back should be _illegal_, but_—_a p-petition would have sufficed, not sneaking into his house and stealing film canisters!"

I stopped. "…you hated his re-release of Empire Strikes Back?"

Trepidation flooded his eyes. "Y-yes! Jesus, don't _hate_ me, I can't help it, it just really sucked!" He flinched, as if expecting me to hit him or something.

Assuming everything he just said was true, I was now under the impression that not only did this kid hate what Lucas did to his own work, but that he hated it enough to break into his house and _steal_ film from the man himself. Knowing the crowd he apparently ran with at the time, who knows what else he'd gotten into for the sake of saving the art of film from that devil-incarnate of a man.

I could have said a million things at this moment, but all I managed to get out was, "…I hated it, too."

His eyes lit up, as if he's relieved I wasn't going to assault him or anything. "Yeah? It sucked, didn't it?"

"Yes, it did," I murmured, not thinking about what we're talking about anymore.

Whatever is hanging in the air about the two of us shatters like glass when Kenny suddenly ducked his head into the booth, his bandana hanging around his neck. "There you are!" He spotted me. "Oh, hey Stumpy. What were _you_ two up to?" His tone of voice and what it suggests does not sparkle with me.

"What do you want?"

"Huh? Oh, right." He turned to Tweek. "Dude, we're leaving, you comin'?"

The boy jumped, but nodded.

"Hey, where'd you get money to pay for this game?" Kenny said suddenly. "Stumpy pay for you?"

"What?" I said. "No, he paid for himself. Me, too."

"Dude, you fucking liar," Kenny said, grinning at Tweek. "Little asshole, you told me you didn't have any money. You even showed me your empty wallet."

"I'm not a liar!"

"Then where'd the tokens come from, buddy? They fall from the sky?"

That's when I realized I'd never actually seen him put money into the token machine. There was no way he…

"Jason leant me a dollar," Tweek said quickly and quietly. He glanced at me, grabbed my hand, and placed his fist inside it. "S-see you around, Craig." He opened up his hand and I felt his tokens slip into my palm. He stepped out of the booth and followed Kenny.

Judging by the amount of tokens now sitting in my hand, what Tweek had was worth way more than one dollar.

But I didn't care.

That night I went to sleep and had a dream that I was on a pirate ship, standing at the steering wheel, turning it and turning the ship. There are zombies on board, hundreds of them. Tweek is there, too, standing by my side, and we're both armed with swords, fighting off zombie after zombie. They fall into the ocean, which is a strangely _white_ in color. It's a sea of milk, I realized, and floating all around us are giant pieces of Captain Crunch cereal, and our ship is in the bottom of a bowl. When a tide hits and our boat careens over, I grab Tweek and hug him to me, and we _die_ together, zombies and milk and cereal and all.

It jostled me awake at 3:30 in the morning, where I was hugging my comforter like its very life depended on me. I sat up quickly, my cheeks on fire and my stomach turning, and I buried face in my hands, but when my eyes shut, the first thing I saw was his _face_, flashing at me with every emotion he'd thrown at me that day, and a few more my brain decided to make up. I released my head, and ran a finger across my wrist, where I could still feel the place where he bit me, and I sighed shakily and uneasily, that _feeling_ rolling around in my gut again.

Emotionless. Like a rock. Like a robot. That's what they called me.

_Do you ever smile, Craig? Do you cry? Do you laugh? Do you ever feel anything but nothing?_ That's what they _demanded_ of me.

Let the naysayers know this now: I wasn't at all like the first group, and I most certainly could answer yes to the second.

...I think I was in infatuated with Tweek.


	5. Infiltration

I had never woken up feeling so powerless before.

I'm not talking physically, either, like I was out of energy and _tired_ or anything, because, despite the crazy hour in the morning it was and the fatigue my body ached with, I was wide awake.

No, I mean I felt powerless over _myself_, weak, vulnerable, out of control, like somebody had intruded past my defenses—a somebody with wild blond hair and wide green eyes and a borderline Jew-nose that _crinkled_ when he pouted in that way I liked so much—a somebody that had cracked my security system and was importing thoughts and feelings into me and working at the gears to get me to do things and think things, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.

Like how I treat most unexpected intruders into my life, I didn't like this. I didn't like this at all. I even tried to get rid of it. Sitting up in bed at three in the morning on a Sunday, reeling from the weird and terrible emotions that my dream had caused to course through me like a high-voltage shock, I tried to _fight_ it. But it was so potent, so _loudly_ present within me, that there was no running away from it. I could only dig my knuckles into my temple and grind out an angry mantra of, "_no, stop, stop, no, NO, don't you _DARE."

Not knowing what else to do, I stumbled out of bed, my legs tangling in the sheets and tripping me on my face as I did, before darting downstairs and blindly groping around in the dark for my kitchen. It was a chore to find the light switch, but when I finally flipped it on, I immediately grabbed a glass out of the cabinet, threw on the sink's faucet, and filled myself a tall glass of water, downing it in a gulp and finishing with a laborious sigh.

…I don't know if the situation really warranted a glass of nasty tap water when there was a perfectly clean pitcher of filtered water sitting in the fridge, but it made me feel extra dramatic and actually calmed me down considerably as I attempted to compose myself.

Then I shut my eyes and there was his_ face_, and all composure was gone. My intruder worked his wonders on me, stirring an unfortunately familiar feeling of _I-don't-know-what_ within me and rolling it around in the pit of my stomach and sending heat up into my face and it was stupid and I felt stupid and everything was just _stupid_.

I tried to get rid of it, tried screaming at it in my head, '_leave me ALONE'_. But it didn't operate like Stan or Kyle or heck even Clyde, where I could insult it and bark orders at it and expect to be left alone. This was unlike anything I had ever encountered before.

Gripping the edge of our tiled kitchen counters as if holding on for dear life, I finally decided that maybe the best way to fix this was to distract my brain. If I was thinking about something else, I couldn't possibly think about…about _him_.

I wandered drowsily into the living room and turned on my Xbox, resolving to play whatever the hell was in there. I can't even remember what it was anymore; something where I got to shoot people, I'd wager, because I remember my mind blanking out and become numb to the sounds of gunfire emanating from the TV. After an hour of this, at four in the morning, my brain caught up with my body and I began to feel the lethargy. Figuring I had done enough, I finally retreated back upstairs to go to sleep.

But no. My intruder didn't sleep and figured that neither should I, so I was treated to another wonderfully torturous hour of tossing and turning. When I squeezed my eyes shut, there he was, his eyes closed and head bowed over a cantaloupe as he inhaled its scent and tested its ripeness. When I seized my eyelids open to stare in agony at my darkened ceiling, there he was, glowering at me through the glass of the store's freezer door as I wrote notes to him in the frost. When I tried thinking of other things, of cars, of boobs, of anything that might distract me, there he was, his lips ghosting over the skin of my wrist as he leaned in to bite me with the intentions of turning me into the living dead.

It wasn't enough that I was (involuntarily) summoning these memories. What _really_ got to me was how these memories were making me feel. When I buried my head in my pillow and moaned to myself, there he was again, his face glowing in the light of the arcade game we'd played together as he whispered, "…I broke into George Lucas's house once," and I felt a swelling in my heart that caused me to clench my eyes shut harder and grip my pillow tighter and _hate_ the small grin that was tugging its way onto my lips and, most importantly, hate _myself_ because of how much I actually loved all of this.

He was like a thief, my intruder, which seemed absolutely fitting. Sneaking into and infiltrating the deepest part of myself, messing around, working quickly, silently, stealthily, and stealing…stealing what? Implanting, more like it, incepting me with ideas and desires that I had no notion of before him. But ultimately, I realized, he _was_ stealing something. He was stealing _me_.

And it was working.

It was enough for me to give up on fighting it. The visions stopped being simply memories then, as if now my brain had been set free to do whatever it wanted with this boy. Suddenly it wasn't just _him_ there; it was me there, too, and we were…we were _holding hands_ sometimes and sometimes we were sitting together on the _bus_ (I don't even know if he rides the bus) and sometimes we were in a crowded space and he was _looking_ for me and…and sometimes we kissed. Sometimes we fucking kissed. Sometimes I was fucking kissing another boy I barely remembered, hardly knew. For lack of a better phrase, only in my _dreams_ could these things take place. These were situations I would never be caught dead in, situations that made me want to bury a hole and crawl into it.

And it felt a thousand times more glorious to give into these thoughts than to try and ward them off.

Because when I tried to avoid them, my heart…my heart actually _ached_. While I saw this invasion of feelings as an intruder encroaching on my personal space, my heart saw it as a guest in our home, welcoming it, loving it, wanting it to just stay forever and almost _needing _it. When I attempted to deny it, I could feel my heart in there, twisting, _yearning_. There's no way to describe it in a way that makes sense, but I _knew_ it wanted something, something I couldn't just give it, and the feeling of not being able to please my heart was almost sickening.

_What_ had that kid done to me?

I heard a soft squeak utter from somewhere on my right, and through the faint moonlight beams that filtered through my windows, I saw Stripe up and awake, looking startled at me as I sat there muttering to myself. He clearly thought I was crazy for being up this early, for talking to myself, for beating myself in the head with my fists, and I didn't blame him for thinking that way. I felt a little crazy. In some ways, I felt a lot crazy.

You know, I spend a lot of time mimicking movies and living through my imagination, but the magical thing is that what happens in a movie usually stays in a movie. I could pretend all I want, but this stuff was supposed to just to remain there, in a world far away from mine, where its craziness would never touch me. From the wacky and dangerous adventures to the cheesy cliches, all this stuff was just supposed to happen on screen and keep it's distance.

Of course, though, the one time a trope comes to life with me, _for real, _it has to be this one, doesn't it? The cheesiest one of all? It couldn't have been the..."you're a long lost prince" trope or the..."you have super powers" trope (although I guess that one has happened to me already; can you say laser eyes?) But this one? The "falling for someone you just met" trope? Where the two characters are just meant to end up together, so the audience forgives the fact that they've only known each other for a day? I'd always thought it was the silliest goddamn thing; how can you know enough about a person in one day to really want to hook up? I know movies can only go on for so long and it's hard to cram relationship development into something like that, but it's _everywhere_ and that doesn't change the silliness.

And of course that's what was happening to me, and torturously so. I don't think I will ever roll my eyes at another "improperly developed" romance ever again.

Life works in such a funny way like that. There's no way to tell what's going to happen next, but when it happens, it's quick, and then you can't remember living without it.

I'm not sure if anyone out there has gone through this before, but if you haven't, let me be the first to say that it is bizarre as all hell to wake up one morning completely and confidently straight (if not borderline asexual), and then wake up the next morning, not more than twenty-four or so hours later, and not be so sure of that anymore. It's like reaching the border between two states, stepping out of the car, and actually taking a physical step across it. One second ago you were in a completely different state, and now _one second_ into the future, you're in a different one.

Just. Like. That.

Except, well, what I was going through was not quite as premeditated as that. It's interesting to think, though, that if I could relive Saturday morning, the thought of this occurring would have never struck me in a million years. Then, suddenly something just happens, harmless, practically nothing and out of nowhere, and I suddenly I can't remember what it was like not to feel this way.

I wasn't sure what _was_ causing me to feel this way, to think this way, to see him like that. I began to reason to myself that surely it was just my strange need to be his friend, my desire to know him, my intense interest in our past together that my imagination had confused as being more than platonic. There was no reason to worry about it, no reason to speak of it to anyone. After all, these feelings would fizzle out and die anyway, right? I'd make a whole experiment about it. I'd let the thoughts and feelings be, let them have their way and let loose. They'd run their course and then burn out, like nothing. And when I'd see him at school on Monday, I thought, it won't be weird and I'll be over this very awkward time in my life. It would be a memory, one I was more than happy to toss on the pile of things I had easily forgotten.

That's what I had been hoping anyway. I had taken for granted, though, just how much these feelings would indeed let loose.

I probably got about thirty minutes of sleep before leaving for work that morning, and when I did finally need to get up, the routine carried on as usual. I showered, changed, and went downstairs to eat breakfast, just like every boring morning. Bea was there at the table for some reason, though, and seeing her reminded me of the last time I had spoken to her, which was last night. I'd come home from Whistlin' Whilly's and had poured to her about my extremely successful Saturday (she'd been very proud of me; we had had pancakes again that night). Remembering _that_, however, reminded me of why Saturday was so successful, which was all because of Tweek, and remembering Tweek made my stomach turn with such ferocity that I actually _needed_ to stop eating because there was just no way I was going to be able to force anything down my throat and keep it there.

"Talk to me," I cried, speaking fast and with an obvious desperation in my tone, my right leg shaking as I bounced the heel of my foot against our floor.

"Wha?" Her voice sounded somewhere between half asleep and like she couldn't understand the crazy that was coming out of me.

"Just _talk _to me. Say something. What are you doing today? Talk, please, and be _vivid_."

"Um," she hesitated, "I'm going to Clare's house… Her mom is taking us shopping, because I need a new skirt for school tomorrow, and daddy gave me money and—"

There was no use, unfortunately. Whatever the hell she was saying wasn't nearly interesting enough to keep my brain from running back to Tweek. It was like having a magnet so powerful that not even a concrete wall could stand in the way of its attractive force to the metal object behind it. No, instead of being distracted by my sister's words, my brain used them against me, and suddenly there was Tweek…buying skirts with my sister and then…_trying them on_ and he looked so _good _and I just wanted to—

With an awkward abruptness, I quickly rose to my feet and, without saying another word, strode out the front door and left.

The walk _to_ work was hard, too, though, because no one was around to talk to me and help distract me during _that_. I was alone, me and my thoughts, and at some point I briefly wondered about how _nice_ it would have been to have Tweek walking with me to work. He might have been cold, though. I could've held his hands. _That_ would have been nice, I thought. _Really_ nice.

"Ohh, _God_."

The rest of the morning was no different from the way it hard started. No matter what I did, my brain reverted back to Tweek, like he had become my new default settings. I started to slow down even more than normal, sometimes stopping altogether in the middle of a task to space out and think about, maybe, _is he right-handed or left-handed?_ or _I wonder if we like the same music_, or some other stupid crap I normally wouldn't care about.

I tried several times to get Clyde to talk to me to distract me. We started off pretty well: we were talking about how Token was coming home from Hawaii that night and how Clyde had driven himself to work that day just so we could go visit him immediately afterward.

When that conversation died, I panicked and suddenly asked him about the one thing I knew he could talk about extensively, the one thing he was most interested in: girls. Like who he was checking out right now or whom he had been with recently or something, _anything_, really. I don't know if you remember, but I have a list of things I hate, and listening to Clyde talk about girls is one of the things near the top. That's how you know I was getting desperate.

Clyde didn't miss this strangeness in my behavior. "Did you just ask me who I'd _been in_ recently?"

My mouth was a straight line. Apparently I'd mixed up the words "with" and "in" without realizing it. "Yes. I did."

He eyed me oddly. "…you're really freaking me out."

"That makes two of us."

Clyde paused. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"…then since when do you care about the girls I've been with?"

"I don't. I just love the sweet sounds of your voice." Which was mostly true. His nasally voice was heaven compared to the crisis I was currently going through.

Suddenly, he grinned. It was very Kennyish, and I didn't like that. "No way, man, you're trying to get with someone!"

"You honestly think if I wanted to go out with a girl I would talk to _you_ about it? Think again, chubs." I snorted derisively. "How long have we been best friends? I thought you'd know that by now."

"No…" Clyde mused, thoughtfully, watching me even more carefully after what I'd just said. "It's not that you're asking me about girls that tips me off. It's because you're _asking me about girls_."

"Logic has never been your forte, has it?"

"No, dude, shut up!" The smirk was back as he eyed me, and I actually began to feel a little uneasy. "It's not that you're asking me about girls _because_ you want to get with a girl. It's that you're asking me about girls _period_, which the Craig _I've_ been best friends with since first grade wouldn't be caught _dead_ doing." He wiggled a finger at me. "You're acting funny. You never act funny. You must _like _someone."

Oh, _God,_ fuck those ten years of being friends, this half-retarded son-of-a-bitch could read me like a book. I was wrong about him this whole time. Who was the shitty best friend now?

I'm not sure what face I had made just then, but it suddenly prompted Clyde to declare with a laugh and a clap, "you _do_ like someone!"

"No, I _don't, _you freak."

"Nope, nope, no, you're acting weird, and that's the only thing that can explain it. In fact, you were acting weird yesterday. And all of last week."

_where was this going, oh god please be as dumb as I like to remind you you are._

"…you've been acting weird since last Saturday." He stopped, his face lighting up. "You've been acting weird...ever since you ran into _Tweek _for the first time."

"Stop that," I muttered, resisting the urge to grab my sides as that stupid feeling rolled around in my stomach at the sound of Tweek's name.

"Stop what?" He beamed.

"Stop making that face."

"What face?"

"That one." I pointed at it. "It's your, '_I've got you all figured out'_ face, and you haven't figured out a goddamn thing, so stop it."

"Right, whatever you say, Craig." Clyde continued to smile to himself.

"You're still doing it!"

"How's this one?" He stuck his fingers in the corners of his mouth and pulled his lips down, looking like a crazed caveman. "Does this please your highness?" It sounded like gibberish with his fingers in his mouth like that, but there was a time in our friendship career where we talked to each other like that for a week, so I was pretty fluent in this ooga-booga speak.

I flipped him off.

He cackled maliciously as he walked off toward the stockroom to go take inventory, and that was the last I heard from Clyde for a while.

While I was relieved to be rid of him (I couldn't tell if he was kidding or not, and he was hitting too close to home for comfort anyway), I had lost the one annoying thing I had counted on to keep my brain on task. I was forced to seek out distraction in ways I would have otherwise preferred not to deal with, magically seeing them less as sources of irritation and more as…"little blessings in disguise."

Every customer was a godsend. Every question was more than welcomed. Every conversation with a fellow human was the sweetest thing I could have asked for. I even began hoping Kyle would come in. He didn't, but the fact that I had desired this at all was enough for me to know that I was even more desperate than I had thought.

I could feel, though, that nothing would have satisfied my brain (or heart or whatever was in control anymore) than for the very thing we'd been fixated on all day to show up. It felt like I was being nagged at by a very stubborn child who wouldn't leave me alone until I gave it the thing it craved, which I would have been more than happy to oblige at this point. I'm sure even a picture of Tweek would have gotten my brain to leave me alone, but the real deal would have been nice, too.

But, I don't know, there was something about _Sundays_ because, just like last Sunday, Tweek never did show up. That was one of two things that had been starkly interesting about this Sunday and the last, the other being that I hadn't been going to church. That last one was obviously because I had to work and because my parents weren't around to force me to go. Once school started again, I wouldn't have to work on weekends and soon my parents would be back and then I'd probably have to show up to that snorefest again.

Sadly enough (sorry, God), I was less bothered about this than the fact that Tweek never showed up. I'd seen him so much in the last week that it felt weird going a day without him, which was funny since I'd been just fine these past eight years. I couldn't remember what that felt like anymore, though. Not having him in my life, I mean. It was odd.

Unfortunately or fortunately or _I don't even know anymore_, I did see Kenny. He came in around four thirty, an hour and a half before closing time (we closed early on Sunday). I could already tell it was him without glancing behind me or at the convex mirror in the corner, just by the sound of it, since the guy came _barreling_ his way into the goddamn door. The little bell hanging above it made the most pathetic shrilly cry of help before flying off its hook and careening to the floor, and the door ended up swinging all the way open and knocked over the nearest food item display (it was a pyramid of chocolate cereal that had taken me ten minutes to set up just to Clyde's liking). It literally sounded like the whole store was going to collapse any second, with the way this asshole came barging in.

Like I said, _every_ customer was more than welcomed by me that day, and Kenny wasn't completely different. Dealing with his nicknames and hand-holding was probably a thousand times more irritatingly distracting than Clyde could have ever been.

On the other hand, it was impossible to drop my old habit of being aggravated every time he so much as breathed. He _was_ an annoying little shit, after all.

To top it off, the minute I saw him, my mind drifted back to yesterday, the last time I had seen him. I'd been in that cramped crowded arcade booth with Tweek at the time when Kenny poked his head in, and I remembered the first thing he said to us: "what were _you_ two up to?" There was a certain way he had said it, though, and suddenly, with everything Clyde had insinuated a few minutes ago, I began to fear that _Kenny_ might suspect something as well. It was funny, since I'm usually very nonchalant about these things. I've never had a secret to hide before, and yet here I was, once a boy who hardly possessed a shred of paranoia, fretting about the stupidest little thing.

But, I mean, if _Clyde_ thought he had me figured out, then this would be as simple as two plus two for Kenny. If that were the case, I would rather sit in a pile of my embarrassing fantasies than risk him bringing anything up.

So when I heard him coming, I basically prepared myself for the impending conversation I really didn't want to have by scrunching my face into a look of what I hoped conveyed discomfort and immense hatred. It was my own cockroach repellent, this face, and I was hoping it would keep the pest _away_. But Kenny is very much a cockroach in that nothing can kill him and keep him dead. You can take that any way you wish.

Honestly, I would have done anything else but work the register at that time, just because I wanted to avoid interacting with Kenny, but the poor bastard was quick and had already been standing before me with his purchases and rifling through his ratty holey jeans for cash.

He was buying what looked like a box containing ten condoms, three Sharpies (blue, black, and red), and a medium-sized jar of mayonnaise.

His bandana was around his neck today, which meant I was actually able to understand him when he casually greeted me, "hey, Stumpy, what's up?" He also reached out to grab my hand from where it was sitting on the counter before I seized it away quickly. He shrugged, then dove the same hand into his left pocket and placed a five-dollar bill on the counter. He dug his hand deeper down into the pocket, then gave me a smile that I _think_ was supposed to look innocent.

I eyed his wares for a long moment, not responding and trying to make my stare as blank as possible. There was a beat of silence, save for the jingling coins in his pocket. He retrieved four more dollars (that was the most money I'd ever seen on him at one time ever) and tossed them on top of the five.

Noticing my stare still fixed on his shit in front of me and that I had yet to say anything, that creeper cracked one wry-ass grin. "Hey, rela_aax_, man, these aren't for what you think they're for…"

The condom box was about five dollars, from what I could remember at the time. Five dollars for a gaggle of birth control, when five dollars was like… two months allowance for Kenny McCormick. What in God's name he was doing that _wasn't_ what I was supposed to think he was doing with condoms too expensive for his poor ass to afford was _beyond_ me.

I was relieved, at least, that he'd been here for a good four minutes and still had yet to make a remark on yesterday, but I didn't want to jinx it. I robotically rung up his purchases, still not making a sound, and the amount had come out to seven dollars and a cent, an awkward number that meant I owed Kenny ninety-nine cents in change. As the receipt printed, the cash register popped open and to my utmost delight (read: displeasure) I saw that whoever was in charge of putting change in the register (AKA Clyde) had stocked the drawer with two dimes, four nickels, what looked like a million pennies, a rusty paper clip, and not a single quarter.

As I struggled to collect ninety-nine cents out of the register, I watched through my peripherals as Kenny patiently toyed with his box of condoms. He eyed the package in his hand thoughtfully and continued to grin. "Well, actually, maybe _some_ of them are for what you're thinking they're for… I might as well save a few, and," his eyes darted up quickly, glancing at me mischievously. "I'll be stopping by Tweek's later tonight—"

I had been carefully cradling Kenny's change in my left hand while he'd been talking, and was about to gently guide them into the receipt cupped in my right. Instead, the left hand twitched and all five million of those little metal bitches flew in about a thousand directions at my feet, and the right hand had suddenly clamped in fist so tight it tore through the receipt.

My head snapped like lightning in his direction, and I'm pretty sure I looked really stupid right here—really stupidly shocked, I think. Definitely not "blank" anymore.

Maybe I looked pissed, too, because Kenny had backed up a step, his hands up in defense. His grin was a little less like that of a jackass, more of some guy who owed someone a lot of money he didn't have and was trying to talk his way out of it. It looked like a face this guy used often.

"Whoah, calm down, dude, I was joking!" He stared at me like I was crazy, but tried to remain steady, as if any sudden movements would set me off. "Besides, if I was gonna bone Tweek, why would I need condoms? He won't be getting pregnant any time soon."

"HIV, you goddamn pervert," I mumbled in a deadpan tone. Funny that that'd be the first thing I say to him.

His hands fell back to his sides and he frowned. "I don't have HIV."

I wasn't convinced.

"I'm not trying to have sex with Tweek! Here's how you know I'm not lying," he began counting on his fingers, "I'm not that much of an asshole, I actually _like_ you, and I don't enjoy dying, contrary to popular belief, so coming here to gloat to you would be the last thing I'd be comfortable with doing." He sighed. "Sheesh, I'm not that stupid. That's Cartman-level stupid right there."

Heat flooded into my face again, though less out of anger and more out of embarrassment. "What the hell do I have to do with you trying to have sex with some guy I barely know?"

He wiggled a finger teasingly at me, just like Clyde had, and smiled like Clyde had, too. "Don't playing fucking stupid with me, Stumpy. I'm more observant than you think."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said, although I was beginning to think that I knew exactly what he was talking about.

He tsked at me disapprovingly. "Kay, whatever. Reason number four I wouldn't sleep with Tweek, then, if you so desire: he's my friend, and I have a strict flirt-only diet when it comes to that special category of individual."

I flinched at the word "friend". I still couldn't get over that Tweek would be friends with Kenny and those guys, and yet seemed disgustedly opposed to even being near me. It took my mind off whatever the hell I was annoyed by, though, so I dropped the issue, sighing as I bent down to pick up the coins I had spilled earlier. I couldn't see Kenny from where I was crouched behind the counter, but I heard him put down the condom box as he hummed patiently to himself.

"So, what's the _real_ deal with you two, if you don't mind me asking? Outside my speculating, anyway. Wanna share?"

I said nothing, raking pennies and more pennies toward me.

"I'd just find out eventually, you know. My speculation has a pretty high success streak." I didn't doubt him. Though loud and annoying when the mood struck him (usually around me), he was generally a pretty chill and quiet guy. This meant he spent a lot of his time observing and thinking, kind of like me, except far more extensively and about things I don't give a shit about. He had a habit of figuring out things about people before anyone knew it—or even _without_ anyone knowing it.

And, lo and behold, after a fraction of a second: "Alright, you asked for it." Dramatic beat of silence. "You have a _thing_ for him, don't you, fagatron?"

If there was one thing I was amazing at, it acting like I don't give a shit. So I didn't. I didn't give in. My face was burning and it felt like I had hamsters scurrying around in the pit of my stomach, but I didn't give in, and Kenny seemingly dropped it. In fact, after about fifteen awkward seconds, he actually offered to help me pick up the coins. Said, "normally I'd tell you to just keep the change, but this money should be lasting me a few weeks, not ten minutes." I told him I was fine and that this was what I was paid to do (help customers, not crawl around the floor for the only four nickels in the fucking cash register).

I picked up three pennies and a dime that were under my foot, and, still thinking about what he'd said earlier, finally demanded, "how good of friends?" I don't know why I thought to ask that then, but it'd been on the tip of my tongue, like a nervous diver at the edge of a diving board, and I had finally allowed it to plunge forward. How hard it hit the surface depended on the way Kenny answered.

He paused, though, probably to calculate the true nature of my question, before responding. "Decent enough. He hangs out with us more than anyone else."

I felt my brows furrow in irritation, and I was glad Kenny still couldn't witness me from his vantage point.

"He doesn't open up to us, though. We kick back at each other's houses and eat lunch together, but on a personal level, all I know about him I get from just watching him. It's a very shallow friendship, if you may."

I scooped up about forty pennies by a rack of postcards without responding right away, but eventually muttered, "have you ever noticed anything weird about him?"

"Stumpy, Stumpy, that's like asking if I notice anything orange about an orange."

"Not like that, retard," I snapped. "Does he ever…do anything _illegal?_" I didn't want to outright accuse him of being a thief, but that's what I was really getting at, and I was hoping to prompt it out of Kenny.

He chuckled at that. "It's funny you would ask that." I glanced upward at the register and saw him pat the jar of mayonnaise almost fondly. "That's why I'm here!"

"And that means?"

He leaned over the counter. "See, it's like this: it's the last day of break before school, right? So Stan has this dumb idea where he wants to dump water balloons over the bridge at people we don't like. Kyle improves this idea further by saying we make the balloons condoms and stuff them with mayo. Cartman then butts in and orders that the mayo have sharpie dye in it and horse shit while we're at it, then tells me to go get everything with my own money. Said I needed to 'contribute to the team'."

I couldn't help but smirk a little as I collected the last of the coins. I'm going to be completely honest with you about Kenny: for all I go on about how I hate him and how irritating and creepy I think he is, and for how unnerving I find his closeness with Tweek to be, I think he deserves better than Eric Cartman and those other assholes. Deep, deep, _deep_ down, he's really not that bad. Out of those four douchebags, he's, like, the least douchey. I can at least stomach him for a moderate amount of time, and he actually has somewhat of a functioning brain. I always end up being stuck with him one way or another, too, when they piss him off and I feel sorry for him, so it's possible that I've adjusted to a lot of things that used to piss me off more. He may be more of a pervert than me, but he's a lot nicer of a guy than I am. We balance out, I guess.

"So how exactly does Tweek fit into that equation?"

Having gathered all the change, I stood up, and when I did, I noticed that Kenny was smirking again. I grimaced; I really hate it when he does that. "Tweek's coming! I'm swinging by later to pick him up."

"He…actually agreed to something like that?" I asked, frowning. Sure he was a thieving little mouse, but he didn't really strike me as the mayonnaise-loaded-condom-throwing type, so I chalked the influence of that up to him hanging out with Stan and company, which, I might add, was making me more and more uncomfortable the more I was reminded of it. I reasoned to myself that it was mostly because I hated those guys, but some sick part of me was thinking, _you just want him to yourself, you fucking creeper._

In response to what I'd said, Kenny snorted. "No way! Dude, Tweek would flip and tell me 'you can't trust latex' or something stupid like that. No, I'm kidnapping him. He can't tell me no if I'm already at his house. Besides, that little fucker needs to get out more." He thought about it. "…well, what do you think, would he be more suspicious of the condoms or the mayonnaise? Or the sharpies? Are there any crazy sharpie-government conspiracies I'm not aware of?"

It was a harmless question, but when I realized I had no idea about what the hell Tweek would be most worried about, it made me a little annoyed, like that was just another thing to add onto the pile of things I didn't know about this guy.

Instead of saying anything, I printed out another receipt and reached over to tear it.

Kenny eyed me slyly from behind his bangs. "You wanna come, Stumpy?"

I faked an extremely boisterous laugh at that. "Ah-HAH. HAH. HAH. No."

"Oh, _come on_, I know you're anti-fun, but you don't have to come for _that_. You wanna help me get blondie out of his house? Who knows? If he's going to be all stubborn about it, you could stick around and keep him _company_, if you catch my drift…"

And then I dropped the fucking change again. Maybe "dropped" isn't the right word. It was like they spontaneously exploded out of my hand.

This time I actually let out a squeal. It was a very manly squeal, and out of frustration, I can assure you. The torn receipt and the heavy blush on my cheeks, however, were a whole different matter entirely.

Both Kenny and I stared at the mess of coins in silence.

"That bad, huh?" Kenny finally managed.

I somehow got my body to move, my legs crumpling under me as I furiously shoveled coins in my direction, all the while struggling angrily to both hide my blush and rid myself of it. God, I must have looked like a huge idiot.

"Shut up, shut up, just _shut up_," I growled.

"You know what," Kenny said suddenly, "why don't you just _keep_ the change, okay man? And, uh, you _call_ me if you change your mind about coming today."

He suddenly grabbed his stuff, shoved what he could in his pockets, tugged on his bandana, and, patting my shoulder as he strode by, he walked over to the exit.

"Wait!" I called from the floor, sitting up on my knees to peer over the top of the register (enough so that my still burning cheeks couldn't be seen).

Kenny stopped with his hand on the door's handle, glancing back at me.

"Does…does he ever steal things?"

Kenny frowned at me. "Nnn…" he mumbled curiously. "Nt tht I nnw ff."

_No. Not that I know of._ My face fell. What the hell did that mean?

Kenny had asked me why, I think (who can ever tell, really), and I told him to fuck off, so he left.

I ended up crawling around the floor picking up loose change for another ten minutes, my brain running over memories of all of Tweek's shoplifting and trying to remember if any of that had really happened. My blush was long gone by the time I was done cleaning up (thank _God_), but the feelings I had felt at the time were still there. Were they _ever_ still there.

And of course, I never took Kenny up on his invitation to see Tweek that day, since I had to go welcome Token home later anyway. I mean, the thought of getting to see him again was pretty tempting (so much so that the mere prospect of it had caused me to drop ninety-nine cents in mostly pennies). But seeing him under the pretences of an activity that involved Stan and his friends still bothered me like you wouldn't believe.

So, I _didn't_ go with them, but that didn't stop me from mentally inserting myself in the fantasy situation. Except, in my head, I go with Kenny to Tweek's house, and Tweek says no to throwing condoms off a bridge, and Kenny walks off, and I'm about to, too, but Tweek says something like, "wait, Craig, you want to stay for a little while?" The details are foggy. I remember daydream!Tweek is wearing shorts and…his legs are _gorgeous,_ oh fuck me, but anyway it ends in us making out on a recliner I don't even know if he has.

This was getting successively more ridiculous the more I gave in.

Clyde and I locked up the store a little while later, at six on the dot. Actually, it was more like _I _locked up and _he_ raced out and dove into his car with a speed I'd only seen completed by the cheetahs on Animal Planet. He honked his horn at me, grinning happily as he did, and I flipped him off, shoving the key ring in my jacket pocket as I stomped over. The radio was set to country when I slid into the car (I was impressed with his ability to learn from his mistakes), and as we drove off, he sputtered words of excitement revolving all around Token. It took a long time to get him to shut up long enough to ask him whether we were going to the airport or Token's house, but when he screeched to an abrupt and painful stop in the middle of the road, I assumed that he had failed to tell Token we were even coming for him.

I took out my phone and dialed Token's number, shaking my head at a bashful-looking Clyde as I did.

"Hello?"

"Token." I had a very blunt way of professing it, but there was a definite Craig-brand of excitement in my tone. It was the first time I'd heard Token's voice in a week, and it actually made me happy to hear it.

"Craig!" was what I think he said, but I couldn't tell because Clyde was suddenly shouting, "TELL HIM I SAID HI!"

Token chuckled in my ear. "Hello, Clyde."

"Dude, are you—"

"ASK HIM IF WE CAN PICK HIM UP FROM THE AIRPORT!"

"Can you hear him?"

"Tell Clyde I'm already home."

I moved the phone away from my mouth. "He says he's home."

Clyde started the engine almost instantly, perhaps before I was even finished saying "home". "We're coming, Token buddy, hold on!" And I do believe I'd never seen him drive faster.

Token knew Clyde wasn't kidding, because when we rolled up through his circular driveway, he was already standing outside the giant double doors to his house. Clyde's car door flew open the same moment the engine shut off, and in his excitement he seemed to forget he was wearing a seatbelt and basically got stuck about halfway through getting out of the car. He took a few seconds to fight with the thing before tumbling out and onto the pavement, then scrambled to his feet, ran around the front of the car (not even bothering to close his door) and pretty much tackled Token in a giant bear hug.

I ambled my way over considerably more calmly than he had and patiently waited for Token to pry Clyde off. Without hesitation, Token and I then commenced exchanging our secret handshake, which I'd share with you if it wasn't supposed to be secret. There's some complicated fist bumps and hand grabbing in there, though, and it ends in a manly bro-hug, after which we do the handshake backwards, like someone just pressed reverse on us, and then let go like nothing just happened.

"I love it when you guys do that," Clyde cried, wiping a fake tear from his eyes.

Token beamed. "Well, thanks for the welcome party. C'mon inside, I have presents for you."

Next to actually seeing him again, of course, our favorite part of Token returning from vacations is the gift-giving part, and for good reason. I have the craziest shit in my room because of this fool, let me tell you. How many seventeen-year-old boys have authentic Scottish kilts hanging in their closets, or a pet-sized sarcophagus from Egypt sitting in the corner? Not many.

We eagerly followed him inside, past his foyer, through his front room, down a hallway, past the first half of his living room, up a winding staircase, and then down another long hallway.

"Did you guys miss me?"

"Don't be gay, stupid, of course not!" Clyde responded, laughing.

"Speak for yourself, r-tard," I interjected. "_I_ missed you, dude. It'll be nice having someone to talk to with an IQ higher than a plank again."

"Hey!"

"I don't think this guy even noticed you were gone at all. He was pretty quick to replace you with that Stoley kid."

Clyde gasped. "I would never! We just hung out a few times! I love Token way more than Kevin!"

"Oh, who's being gay _now_…?" Token sniggered.

"Whatever, dude," I continued, "that's bull. They played _House of the Dead_ together."

"Clyde!" Token faked a sound of emotional distress. "That was supposed to be _our_ game!"

"It was just one time!"

"One time too many," I muttered.

"Yeah," Token agreed. "Maybe I should have Kevin give Clyde his souvenir? It might mean more coming from _him_…"

"No, I think the best way to punish Clyde would be to just give me both presents."

"Weak, you guys! Totally weak!"

It was nice having Token back.

We reached Token's hugemongous room (which is easily the size of the entire property my house sits on) to find it riddled with several open suitcases, scattered clothes, random bags, and whatever crazy nicknacks he had strewn about.

Clyde and I immediately darted over to grab our respective giant color-coded beanbag chairs that Token keep in his room just for us when we come over. Clyde's is red, mine is blue. Token has the purple one. No one else gets to sit in them, not even when we're not there. I know this because one time I came over to Token's house to pick up something I'd left there and I overheard Wendy in his room (they were working on a project together) asking him if she could sit in the blue one, and he said "no way, that's Craig's." Did I mention I love Token?

Anyway, so we ran over to our bean bag chairs and dragged them away from where they were normally located near his theater-sized flat screen television to near where he was busy rifling through a suitcase in his walk-in closet.

"How's work, you two?" he asked, his voice muffled from being hidden within the closet.

"Boss!" Clyde grinned, throwing his hands in the air. "Literally! I get to be this asshole's boss!"

"Oh, that must be fun," Token mumbled in amusement, poking his head out to look at me. "I guess that answers my question for Craig, then. Having the time of your life, I take it?"

"Actually, it's not as bad as you would think," I admitted. "He let me punch him the first day, that was pretty generous of him. And we made a fort once out of the soda display."

Clyde beamed, nodding. Then he smirked at me in a way that made me feel uneasy, the way it had made me feel uneasy when he'd done it earlier today, and the same way it made me feel uneasy when Kenny had done it. I didn't even get a chance to make sense of that before he snidely remarked, "and let's not forget about your _favorite customer_, huh, Craig? I'm sure that made things _pret-ty_ interesting, eh? The life of a bag boy isn't so lame _now_, is it?"

My eyes widened.

"Oh? Did Craig find a cute girl to hit on?" Token asked.

My stomach felt like it had just imploded.

Clyde grinned harder. "You could say that…"

Without thinking, I socked him in the arm so hard he flipped over and out of his seat, with the beanbag ending up on top of him.

"OW!" Clyde cried out, clutching his arm as he struggled to turn back over. "Craig, _shit_, I know you love DOING THAT, but Christ, I think that one's going to leave a _welt_!"

Token eyed me oddly.

I didn't blame either of them for reacting the way they did. Clyde was right: for all the times I usually wound up hitting him, this was not one of those times where I would normally hit him _that hard_.

And of course, with all the stupid crap Clyde had been sputtering, Tweek, who I'd managed to corral into my subconscious for a little while, was back. An image flashed in my mind of us making out on my beanbag chair, and I almost died on the spot. Shit, shit, _shit_.

I put a hand to my face. It was on _fire_. It was the type of body heat that would probably get a child to call in sick for school, or something. I wondered briefly if all this fucking _blushing_ all day was healthy, like if it led to blood loss or clotting or something later down the line; I then reasoned that me dropping dead as soon as possible was actually a-okay at this point.

"Right," Token mumbled curiously–no, _thoughtfully, _I realized fearfully_._ That was dangerous. That was dangerous like how Kenny's smiles are dangerous. I'd heard that tone of voice from Token before and, with a sinking feeling in my stomach, I knew exactly what it meant. Fortunately, he didn't appear interested in acting on it just right now. Instead he awkwardly mumbled, "anyway, moving _on_ from that…Clyde," then tossed a bag at Clyde, who caught it clumsily before it hit the ground.

Clyde impatiently tore open the plastic, sticking his head in it before squealing in delight and pulling out what was inside and ripping into it.

Within seconds, Clyde was standing before Token and I donning a grass skirt and a genuine…coconut bra.

"Token," Clyde said very seriously, although he still wore his glee on his face. "You know me so well."

"I like to think so. And you're welcome."

I snickered. "I think you know Kevin Stoley pretty well, too. That's practically a gift they both can enjoy."

Clyde stuck his fingers in his ears. "Lalala, I can't hear you, I'm too busy enjoying my coconuts!"

We endured a few more minutes of this (this being Clyde dancing around like a buffoon in his new outfit) before he suddenly asked, "what'd Craig get?"

"Oh, same as you," Token smiled knowingly, turning back into the closet again.

I stopped smirking almost instantly. "You must be joking."

"Heee, I know a certain blond Craig wouldn't mind getting into _that_," Clyde sneered, gazing sardonically my way.

I made a move to attack him again and he backed up against the bed.

"I was talking about Kenny! Relax, jeez!" As if that lie was supposed to make what he had just said any better.

I shut my eyes and sighed in irritation, placing my hands back into my lap. It ultimately made little difference what Clyde said to fix his previous statement, though, because the damage had already been done. Of course my mind flew to Tweek, and we were talking about grass skirts here, so you can just…go ahead and _guess_ what my imagination conjured up about those two things together.

"No, no, I didn't get him a hula outfit," Token said, chucking something at both Clyde and I.

We both caught them at the same time, and glanced down. Chocolate-covered macadamia nuts.

Clyde, being the garbage disposal that he is, ripped open his box and dove into it, eating about four in one mouthful. "Token, you're the _best!"_ Although, because Clyde's mouth was full of chocolate, it sounded more like, "Token, you're the breast."

I myself tugged open my box and bit one in half. "I agree. You are the breast."

"Oh, that's not all you get," Token added, looking at me. "Hey, Clyde, go start up the Xbox, would you?"

Clyde saluted and darted off to the TV, still dressed in his skirt and bra.

Token grabbed my wrist and pulled me to my feet, steering me over to the closet. When we were out of Clyde's earshot, Token immediately whirled around and said to me, "okay, spill it."

Here was that moment I had been dreading earlier.

"Spill what?"

"Whatever the hell is eating you. You've been acting weird."

"I don't know what you—"

"Ah, ah… I don't believe I said, 'okay, bullshit it,' I think I said spill it, and I don't hear you spilling it, so you best step back and start over."

I winced.

I wasn't ready for this, not yet. At the same time, though, something compelled me to tell him. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest, like it was reasoning with me, bargaining with me, _if you can't give me Tweek, give me Token. Tell him. I'll leave you alone for now._ And then I knew that I _needed_ this. Next to actually wanting to go through with pretty much all the things my brain had made up that day, I figured the only reason this had been eating at me was because I'd wanted to tell _somebody_. I wanted to shout it, actually, wanted to declare it on a megaphone to the entire world, just to get it _out_ of me.

Token would do for now.

"Okay…okay I'll tell you."

"Alright, tell me."

It was hard, though. My mouth opened, but the words wouldn't come out. I could hear them coming out…in my mind's eye. But the thought of what _exactly_ I was going to say coming out of my real mouth like that was just too surreal and awkward.

So I tried a different approach.

"I've got this friend."

"Your customer friend?"

"No. No, a different friend. He knows the customer friend, though. So…so I've got this _friend_. This friend…Karl."

"Funny, I've never met this Karl…"

"Shut up, okay? Karl has a problem. Because…because Karl…doesn't usually like people. Like that. Karl doesn't usually like people at all, but this time Karl has a problem liking people like _that_."

"Ooh, Karl has a crush?"

"Yes. Yes he does. He has a cr_uhh_—" I wanted to vomit halfway through the word. I shook my head. "Karl. Yes. He has one of those. I think. Anyway, he doesn't like it because it feels fucking weird and he doesn't want it, he wants to…he wants to return it to the store and get his money back. Actually, I guess it was more of an unwanted gift he accidentally picked up, like Santa delivered the wrong Christmas present and Karl doesn't want it. He wants to give it back because it's annoying the crap out of him."

"But I'm guessing there's no gift receipt?" Token smiled at his own joke.

"No! Fuck, man, you can't just return a cr_uhhh_…one of those."

"Sure you can return it! Not like that, though, ha_ha_," he replied, still smiling.

I groaned. "I don't have time for your puns right now."

"Sorry. So how bad is it?"

I stared at him seriously and actually laughed a little crazily. "It's pretty bad. Karl hasn't stopped thinking of this…this other person. All day. He wants to do…_things_ to this person that would embarrass him to ever admit."

"The customer friend?"

"…_yes_," I breathed shakily.

"Do I know this other person?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Karl didn't say."

Token scratched his head. "Well, I don't know what to tell you. That's quite a pickle. I didn't think I'd ever have to be talking about…_Karl_ like this with you."

I nodded. "He's not acting like himself, Token. He's not acting like himself at all. It scares him."

Token put a hand on my shoulder. "Well, _Craig_. You tell _Karl_ that I think it's lovely that he's showing that human side of himself. I was wondering if I'd ever see it, but I think he can handle it. Karl has always been…well, he _sounds_ like he's the type of kid who's always been pretty confident about himself. Very tough, very…_straight-forward_. He's handled worse things, I think he can handle this." He poked me in the gut. "My advice? Don't fight it. You're not any different from the Karl you used to be. This is completely normal, so just roll with it, man. I know you have a hard time dealing with normal emotions, but if this one is actually making headway with you, there's gotta be something to that, y'know? So don't stress too much about it. ...uh, you tell Karl that from me."

I gave him a small, crooked grin.

"And besides…I'm sure he'd make _any_ girl happy to be with them."

My smile crumbled away. Thankfully Token didn't notice it. Instead, he pulled his fist out from behind his back and gestured it toward me.

"This is for you, by the way."

I held out my open palm, and Token dropped something into it. When I looked, I saw that it was a small boat, smaller than a golf ball but bigger than a quarter. Its sails were open wide, and it was made of a polished wood. The number 520 was in small print on its side.

"Five hundred twenty?"

"_Maluhia_ Road. Route 520. It's a road we took in Kaua'i that connects to the major highway."

"And this means _what_ to me?"

"Maluhia means peace, Craig. In Hawaiian. I bought it for you 'cuz I thought you could use some, and I guess I was right."

I punched him playfully in the arm. "Hey, I _am_ peaceful."

"Of course you are."

I stared at it in my palm. "Well, thanks."

"No problem. Wanna see what I got for myself?"

He held out an ukulele.

"Holy shit!"

"Bitchin', huh?"

He handed it to me, and I ran my hand down its body, tracing my fingers along the strings and loving the sound they produced. _Maluhia_ was carved along the face, and I touched that, too. It's not that I'm a huge fan of music or anything. Token _loves_ music, and, I mean it's fine or whatever. But regardless of my own personal interests in the art itself, the little instrument was just so _cool_. It was like a taste of someone else's culture, and you couldn't deny how sweet those things sounded.

"Dude, I'd _kill_ for one of these."

"You can borrow it. Hell, you can come over and jam with me on my bass."

"You know I'm musically challenged, a-hole."

"Not with this, you're not. You can learn. It's pretty easy." He plucked it from my fingers, and began playing it like it was nothing. It sounded so good that it sent a shiver down my spine. "I learned this on the plane!"

Obviously there was no hiding the sound, and Clyde found us almost instantly. "_Dude!"_ he exclaimed, scrambling into the closet. "I want a turn!"

I slapped his fingers away as they grabbed at the instrument. "Hands inside the ride at all times, Clyde. You will break that shit."

Token smirked at me before going over to grab one of his maracas from a box he kept near his bass and handing it to Clyde, who shook it like crazy while Token continued to play.

We kept playing in the closet for the rest of the night, forgetting entirely about our video game. Actually, more like Token kept playing and I watched and listened. At some point he took out his bass and handed me the uke, and I was surprised to find that he was right: I could actually touch this thing and produce a sound that was pleasant to hear, as opposed to causing it to catch on fire or anyone's ears to start bleeding. I'd played an instrument once before, when I was in Cartman's Peruvian flute band, and I was pretty decent at Mary Had A Little Lamb, but I didn't think I'd actually retained anything.

Token had insisted I borrow the ukulele, so when I returned home later that night, I placed it on my side table and stared at it fondly before grabbing it and holding it again. I drew my fingers across the strings and trembled slightly, moved by the sound that echoed out from it. I didn't know how to play a goddamn thing, but it still sounded so beautiful. Who knew something so small and fragile could affect me so much?

Then I thought briefly about you-know-who and retracted the thought.

After a few minutes of this, I returned the uke to my side table, and then reached into my pocket, removing the little wooden boat. I rubbed my fingers against its engraved numbers contemplatively before reaching under my bed and fishing out an old shoebox.

I'm a pirate, and this was my treasure box. Or at least that had been one of my favorite make pretend games I'd played as a kid. That's how this box started. I was eight or nine, I can't remember, and I'd been playing pirates with Clyde (this was before Cartman's Somalia excursion), and we used to store some random yet meaningful crap in here, like marbles and racecars, then bury it in each other's backyards to find. After Somalia, Clyde didn't want to play pirates anymore, so we stopped using it for that. But I kept the box, anyway, and I continued putting things in it.

It'd been a while since I'd had something significant to store in here, so I hadn't looked at it in recently. I removed the lid, and glanced down inside it. The marbles and racecars were still in there, but there was also a ticket to my first R-rated movie, a laser tag wristband, and magazine clippings mentioning my favorite directors. I fished around and found my first video camera, the one I'd gotten from sending in cereal box tops, the one that recorded only five minutes of film. I took it out, placing it on my side table next to the ukelele, and when I did, I saw that lying beneath it was a curious plastic ring. I picked it up carefully, turning it between my fingers. It was red and had a fake plastic jewel on top. I couldn't recall where this had come from, but it looked like the type of crap they give out in cereal boxes, so I assumed that was where I'd gotten it. I tossed it back in the box, and reached next to me to grab Token's boat.

I held it tentatively over the box, ready to place it inside. Then I ran my fingers over the 520, and _Maluhia_ flashed in my head.

At the last second, I closed the box, slid it back under my bed, placed the boat in my hat, placed _that_ on the nightstand, then rolled over and fell asleep.

I dreamed about flashing cameras turning into stars in the sky, and of course, Tweek was there. He always is. I won't annoy you with details, but I could tell he was getting comfortable.

That was as well. He was going to be here awhile.

* * *

School had returned sooner than any of us had wanted it to.

It was weird to think that at 8:30 in the morning, when I would _normally_ be in work but was instead somewhere else, that I would actually miss it. Being at work, I mean, which actually sounded much nicer compared to being where I actually was, which was seated in English, my homeroom class, twirling a pencil between my fingers and willing the day to be over so I could actually _be_ at work.

School was such a drag, but I did appreciate the schedule it forced me into. The whole going to bed/waking up/eating proper meals/increasing my knowledge thing. I probably wouldn't be very productive without it telling me what to do every hour.

The bell rang as usual, we all stood up to recite the pledge, we all sat back down. Then came the announcements. The voice of Casey Miller sang velvety smooth over the airwaves as he welcomed us back for the remainder of the second semester, talked to us about Stan's successful track meet, mentioned club meetings, what would be for lunch…

And then, curiously enough, he ended with, "and now, a message from Principal Hauser."

The voice of our principal suddenly belted out from the speakers. Something interesting about our principal is that he has a voice that sounds like God. I don't know what God sounds like, but Hauser has a voice that God probably should have. So when he talks, people really listen. "Good morning, students. Welcome back to school. I had hoped to deliver this welcome to you on more pleasant terms, but my reason for speaking to you this morning is to draw your attention to a crime that apparently occurred this past weekend.

"As you all know we lock up the school on weekends and especially when the school is not open for break. This weekend was no exception, even with the track and field meet that was being held at the time.

"However, over the weekend I'm afraid the school was somehow broken _into_. There was no damage to the school itself, but we have received reports of items missing from various lockers. Things like makeup compacts, calculators—"

"Serves those donut punchers right for leaving shit in their lockers over break," I heard a girl behind me sneer. It sounded like Lizzy Marten and it had the vocabulary of Lizzy Marten, so I flipped off Lizzy Marten. She called me a pillow biter and I called her an ugly whore and the teacher had to tell us to shut up. We ended up missing out on every other stolen object that Hauser had been listing for us.

"If anyone thinks they've found these objects, you may drop them off at the main office. In addition, these lockers will be having their locks replaced and be given new combinations. That is all."

I had been doing fabulously that whole day. I mean, sure, the night before I'd had another dream about that little bastard. I had woken up feeling groggy and of course my mind was still ghosting over his face, his voice, his lips, his hands, _everything_. But it was certainly tamer than Sunday had been. I'd actually gone through the whole bus ride (where I noticed he was nowhere to be seen) and first period without giving him more than a few passing thoughts. I thought I was doing pretty well.

Then this announcement happened. And of course, my mind flew to him. I'm sure my mind would have to gone to him under some other circumstance, but this was especially specific. I thought about how we had used the school's bathroom on Saturday, and how I found him fiddling with the lockers. I was momentarily stunned, putting two and two together…until my mind kept going, and then I remembered us playing zombies and that stupid goddamn godawful feeling rolled around in my stomach again. I hadn't even realized it until a few seconds later but I had been grinning to myself the whole time. I felt like a freakin' goob.

It actually helped my next three periods fly by like nothing, though, because I kept daydreaming and zoning out of what the teacher was saying. And of course, I had long forgotten the locker break-ins. By the end of math, I had drawn a whole page-full of doodles of…of zombies. Zombies holding hands and zombies slurping the entrails of a human in a very _Lady And The Tramp_-esque manner, but…zombies. I'm not very good at drawing (at all; I suck at it, actually) but they were actually pretty good. I probably couldn't have recreated them under normal circumstances, though, even if I wanted to.

Before I knew it, it was lunch. I was _relieved_, to say the least, to walk into the cafeteria with Clyde, who had the nearest class to me (Token usually met us here), because I wouldn't be able to draw on anything during lunch, at least.

"Dude!" Clyde exclaimed, elbowing me as we got in line to grab our lunch. "I totally got a date with Millie this Saturday!"

"Oh yeah?" I muttered, feigning interest as I waited patiently to be given my food.

"Chyeah! It's going to be _so_ bitchin', man, I'm going to take her to the _movies_ and then we'll drive my car around, and she'll _probably_ let me get to at least second base with her, what do you think?"

I heard the word "movies", and that was it. "Saturday, you say?"

"Yep!"

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

He stared blankly at me, so I reached out and poked him on the forehead. "Braaaains."

A light bulb clicked on in his head. "Oh, _shit_, our zombie marathon!"

That wasn't actually what I was referring to. I was referring to the fact that he was taking Heidi to prom and that going on a date with Millie at the same time was probably a bad idea. I only said, "brains," because I thought Clyde needed one or two extra ones if he ever hoped to function properly in society, and I only said it the way I did because I've always said it like that. I'm the zombie geek, remember?

"Zombie" reminded me of what I'd spent the last few hours doing during class and that, of course, reminded me of who was at the root of all that, so, as I had been reaching for a carton of orange juice while Clyde had been talking to me, the keyword of "zombie" had caused me to hesitate halfway through the grip and I ended up dropping the box.

I bent down to pick it up, blinking furiously at how much of a dweeb I was being that day.

"I'm going to have to cancel the date. And I forgot to tell Token!" Clyde, thankfully, had not noticed anything.

We had eventually finished grabbing our food and made our way to our usual table outside in the courtyard.

"I'm going to have to make him a list of all the snacks he needs to stock up on, too."

"Uh, dude, I'm pretty sure you have to make sure it's okay before you just plan parties at his house."

"Pfft, _no_. Token's cool about it."

"Token's cool about what?" Token asked when we were close enough for him to hear us.

"Uh, zombie marathon, dude! Let's do it! Your house! Saturday!"

"Who said that was going to be okay?"

"C'mon, man, your house is huge! Of course we gotta do it there!"

"The last time we had zombie night, _you_ broke something."

"It was an accident!"

"You were scared, that's why you flung a pillow at my mom's twelve hundred dollar lamp."

"I wasn't _scared!_"

Their arguing faded off into the background as I averted my gaze off into the distance. Clyde, Token, and I had claimed monopoly of the lunch table under this tree since the beginning of high school (no one dared touch it), and right across the yard, not under a tree, was the table Stan and his friends sat at. They ate there every day, just like we did at ours. I usually faced the other direction (toward the tree) because of that whole hating them thing, but not that day. That day I was facing them. And I noticed something I had failed to notice for as long as it'd been there.

That's where Tweek sat.

It was strange having gone all of Sunday and half of that Monday having not seen him and being stupidly obsessed with the fantasies my brain had concocted of him to entertain itself…and then there he was. The real thing. Right in front of me. I'd forgotten we went to the same school, since I'd never noticed him around before, so that increased how surreal it was.

He was perched on the side of the table that was facing me, between Kenny and Butters, across from Stan, Kyle, and Cartman. Fortunately for me, Cartman was sitting on the end, and Kyle, the one in the middle, was sitting as far away from him as possible, so there was a large enough gap to allow me to continue watching him.

He was eating a sandwich and taking sips out of a thermos. Occasionally someone would talk to him, and he'd nod a shaky response and then return to whatever he was doing. He hardly spoke himself. He hardly did much except nibble on his food.

I rested my cheek on my knuckles, sighing a little as I observed him, finding myself oddly enthralled by the dumbest of things. I wondered what they were talking about. I wondered what was in his sandwich, what was in the thermos. They were so _far_, it made me kind of wish their table was closer. It made me wish they were sitting with us. No…it made me wish _he_ was sitting with us.

I thought about all the things Kenny had said to me on Sunday, all this talk of them being "friends", about how close they were, and I briefly began to think that I wanted that. Then I remembered Kenny having mentioned how close they really _weren't_; how Tweek never opened up to them on a personal level, how the most they knew of him was gained through mere observation. I decided, then, that I didn't _want_ what Kenny and friends had with Tweek. I wanted more than that. I wanted better than that. Not only that, I didn't want him to hang out with _them_ anymore. I wanted him here with us. With…me.

I watched Tweek say something to Kenny, who nodded. Then he (Tweek) stood up, trotting off toward the cafeteria. He had left his lunch behind, so clearly he was getting something or doing something in there and would return eventually.

My hand fell back from my cheek to the table with a muffled slam.

"Guys."

They shut up instantly at the sound of the seriousness in my tone and gave me their full concentration.

"I…I'm thinking of asking Tweek to sit with us."

They had mixed reactions.

"Who's Tweek?" Token asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"What? No way, man!" Clyde protested.

I started with him first, pointing at him. "Clyde, shut up." I directed my attention to Token. "Tweek is this kid I met recently, he hangs out with Stan and Kyle."

Token glanced over to the guys at the other table. He probably noticed the missing individual. "Oh…That guy. He was in our class in elementary school, right?" Token bit into whatever he was eating. "Didn't he move or something?"

"Yeah," I answered with certainty. "Fourth grade he moved." I liked that I was able to inform people of things that concerned him. It gave me the illusion that I actually _knew_ things, while it reality I knew nothing.

"And he's here in South Park again? When did he move back?"

"Clyde thinks it was at the beginning of the semester."

Clyde nodded.

"Well, sweet, yeah, invite him over here, man, I haven't seen him in forever. It'll be nice to catch up. Wonder what he's been up to."

"Wait, no, you _can't_!" Clyde yelled again, directing attention back to himself. "What happened to that No Dumbasses At The Table rule?"

I was usually quite lenient about everything, really, but if there was one thing I needed it was a peaceful lunch hour. If I had to spend an entire day at a high school, interacting with dumbass after dumbass times thirty every hour, lunchtime was my sanctuary, my break from idiots so I had a chance to recuperate. So I'd created a rule for our table that said that even though we had the biggest lunch table and it had prime real estate under a tree, none of us were allowed to invite other people to sit with us. There were usually some exceptions: occasionally if I was feeling generous, other kids would be permitted to hang out, but typically it was just the three of us. You might wonder how I got such a marvelous law to be instated at our table. It's because Token doesn't care either way, and we had let Clyde pick the spot in the first place (I had wanted a table that was more in the sun because it was fucking cold; Clyde said the shade made us look mysterious and cool), so I deemed it fair that I got to do this.

Now that I was breaking my own rule, suddenly Clyde decided he cared about the about it, which was funny because he _complained _about it every other day.

"I'm making an exception," I explained. "Tweek's not a dumbass anyway."

"Oh, oh, okay. So…so Kevin can start sitting with us now, too? He's not a dumbass, either."

"I didn't say _that_."

Clyde gaped at me. "How is that fair?"

"Life is not fair."

Clyde grunted in anger. "You're an asshole, man."

I rolled my eyes. I knew I wasn't going to hear the end of this if I didn't at least compromise. "Fine! Kevin can sit with us. _Sometimes_. It's not permanent."

"As opposed to…?"

"Well…Tweek."

"Huh?"

"I think Craig wants to add a new member to our secret club," Token mumbled sarcastically.

For once, Clyde managed to seep through the sarcasm. He glared. "Are you going to buy him his own bean bag chair soon, too?"

I shot him a condescending look. "Maybe I will. Does that not _sparkle_ with you, asshat?"

"Your mom sparkles with me!"

That was where Token drew the line, apparently, as he suddenly began waving his hands about, as if to clear the air of our petty issues. "Alright, whatever, stop bitching, you two. This is getting kind of dumb."

I flipped Clyde off for good measure one more time before continuing. "Anyway, so I'm going to invite him over, okay?"

Token nodded. Clyde continued to fume, now nursing his box of milk angrily.

"Um, and you guys need to be nice to him, okay?"

Milk flew out of Clyde's mouth as he began to laugh. "Nice? _Pfft!_ You don't have to tell _us_. Why don't _you_ try being nice?"

I grit my teeth. "Hey, I _am_ nice."

Clyde doubled over in laughter, almost falling out of his chair.

I stared at Token, gesturing at our idiot best friend, only to see him shrug and say, "Craig, maybe on another planet what you call nice is _actually_ nice. Unfortunately, on Earth (where we live) what you call nice isn't actually, well…nice. It's more…." He paused, thinking.

"Mean?" I offered.

"No, no, worse than that. Malicious? Something closer to cruel?"

"Basically, you're a _huge_ asshole!" Clyde piped.

"Yes, I think that's probably the best way to put it."

I threw my hands up in the air. "Well, thanks guys."

"Hey, you've said way worse things about us."

"And it was probably well-deserved, too."

They exchanged a glance.

"Okay, okay, I'm a dick, I get it. If you're all done hailing and celebrating me, I'm going to be right back."

I slid out of my seat and stormed over to the cafeteria's doors, offering not one but two middle fingers to the kind gentlemen sitting behind me at my table.

I figured I was going to have to go in there and search for him, but, just my luck, as I reached the doors, Tweek walked out at the same time, a banana in one hand and a pack of sugar in the other. He saw me the same moment I saw him, but unlike the millions of other times this had happened, he didn't look completely disgusted to see me. He was surprised at first, as if he, too, had forgotten I went here. And then he actually…he actually _smiled_ a little, just an itty bitty one, more a tug on the corner of his mouth than anything.

There was that feeling rolling around in the pit of my stomach again. I guess normal people called it butterflies, but honest to God, it felt like a parade of drunken peacocks in there. I felt like I was melting, too, like I was going to just turn into liquid right there and slip into the Earth and disappear forever. It was fucking weird and amazing at the same time. Because, just…_God_ after sleepless hours of thinking about him, thinking about every part of him, and touching him and kissing him and doing _other things_ with him, that little grin alone was just something else.

"Hello," I somehow managed, and I was amazed that I had gotten it all out without my voice cracking somewhere in the middle.

"Hi…" he responded offhandedly, walking toward me and then walking past me. I followed him.

I couldn't think of anything else to say immediately, and he glanced at me as I strode next to him a tad awkwardly. "Uh, so, uh, how was your day?"

He blinked curiously at that. "It was…it was fine, I guess." He paused, then made a noise. I loved it. "How was yours?"

We were getting closer to his table. I could see his friends watching him. I suddenly took a big step forward, stopping in front of him and abruptly halting him in his tracks. "It was great. Do you want to have lunch with me?"

Tweek didn't answer right away. He peered around my body at the direction he had been intending to go in, then stared back at me, now adopting an ounce of both confusion and fear on his face. "Why?"

That caught me off guard. "Huh?"

"Why do you want me to have lunch with you? Is there something wrong with the table I was already at? Are the legs wobbly? Is it going to rain or something? Is my food poisoned?" His voice had been escalating with each thing he said, but when he reached that last one, he stopped, his eyes widening. "Oh, _God_, I knew it was poisoned, I _TOLD_ Kenny, I _told_ him that chicken nuggets aren't real chicken! _Jesus, _I already ATE _two_, oh my God, I'm going to die! GAHH I don't want to _die_, Craig, not like this! Not like this!" He had reached the pulling-on-his-hair/tugging-at-his-clothes stage I was now quite familiar with.

"No, no! No. Stop!" I grabbed his flailing wrists, steadying them in front of him until he stopped fidgeting and shrieking. "There's nothing wrong with _anything_, weirdo. I was just asking you to have lunch with me. No reason, just because. _Christ_."

He stopped freaking out momentarily, eyes wide as he stared at me and processed what I was saying to him. This wasn't going especially well, I realized, but if I could take any small victory from this battle, it was the fact that he was now biting his lip again, and God help me if that lip biting isn't just the most bizarrely captivating thing I've seen another person do with a lip. I wanted to clutch my sides, feeling stupid for feeling so _stupid_ and feeling stupid for how wonderful and uncomfortable this all was.

I realized I was still holding his wrists so I released them, shoving my hands in my coat pockets and glancing anywhere but at his face.

"Oh, well, uh," Tweek finally stammered._ "Nghh, _dude, like I mentioned, I…uh, already have a table to sit at? Over there." He pointed. "My stuff is already there!" He twitched. "Don't…don't get mad and punch me or anything, okay?"

"Okay," I said, not knowing what else to say, although I felt an intense sensation of defeat at this.

Tweek nodded nervously, and since I had yet to move, he began walking around me and past me again toward his table. I turned to watch him leave, staring at his back as it strode away from me, and then I did something that, I admit, I wasn't entirely thinking through.

Tweek had long since slid back into his seat between Kenny and Butters by the time I had made it over to their table. Those three blonds all stared up at me expectantly. Kenny looked smug, Butters looked as cheerful as always, Tweek looked so horribly perplexed that I felt _embarrassed_ for myself and whatever stupid thing I was doing right now. When the other side of the table noticed the abrupt change in their facial expressions, they all turned, and now Stan, Kyle, and Cartman were glancing at me, respective looks of confusion, confusion, and irritation littering their faces.

I could see why the general consensus would be confusion, since that's what I was feeling too. It's like I didn't even know how I'd got there, yet there I was.

"What the hell do you want, Craig?" Cartman spat.

"Ignore him," Kyle said quickly to me. "What's up, dude?"

"Um," I started, scratching the back of my neck. "I want to sit. With you guys."

The look they all exchanged after this said something like, "did you guys just fucking see that? I can't believe that just happened. Wow, man, I need to see that again, just what the fuck," to me.

"Huh?" Butters said.

"I want to sit here with you guys, is that okay?" My tone was robotic and my face was set. I was hoping I didn't sound like an idiot or pathetic or desperate or anything, because I had already covered my fair share of that by being here in the first place.

Another look passed amongst them, this something like, "wow, what a special thing we have just witnessed here today," and Stan shoved over closer to Kyle to make room for me on the bench. I slid onto it quietly, then awkwardly laced my fingers together under my chin. I still had no idea what I was doing there.

"Um, you don't have your lunch, man?" Stan mumbled beside me.

"I already ate." That was a lie. I hadn't even touched my food. It was still over there, on the other table.

"Did Token and Clyde want to sit with us, too?" Kyle offered.

"Yes." I turned my head to see, just as I expected, Token and Clyde at our table staring at me with their jaws wide open. I gestured wildly for them to come over and after they took a few more seconds to, as I assumed, deduce whether this was a practical joke or not, they finally stood up and walked towards us.

"Hey, dudes!" they both cried happily as they placed their trays on either side of Kenny and Butters, and they were met by an equally pleased chorus of greetings. I was thankful for the slightly more pleasant attitudes they shoved on because it easily helped make up for the awkward that I had so gracefully succeeded in providing, and soon the table returned back to its norm like nothing odd had just taken place.

Only Tweek still looked as baffled as he had a moment ago, watching me suspiciously like he thought I was up to something. I had intended to force a smile at him to hopefully ease him up, but when I looked over at him, the smile ended up not being forced so much as it was involuntary.

"Did you guys hear about the thing with the lockers from this weekend?" Token suddenly brought up.

I watched as Tweek suddenly turned his gaze away to stare numbly at the table.

"Yeah, it was all over the announcements!" Stan said. "Weird. I wonder when that could have happened."

"It probably happened during your meet, dude," Kyle added matter-of-factly. "That's the only time I can think when there were enough people here to get away with that."

Tweek started fidgeting, uttering noises under his breath. Kenny, beside him, glanced over curiously. I thought about the day before at the store, when I'd asked Kenny if he ever noticed that Tweek stole things and Kenny seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. It dawned on me that the problem wasn't that I'd _imagined_ Tweek being a thief—instead, it was that his closest friends had no idea about that part of himself. I briefly pondered as to who else _besides_ myself knew about Tweek's little problem.

"The Jew has a point. Hell, I'd have done that too. Probably a lot more fun than that boring crap we had to sit through," Cartman chimed in.

"Probably _was_ you, you fat asshole," Kyle growled.

"Excuse me, _Kyle_, but I was sitting next to your Semite ass the entire time. You wouldn't even let me leave to go to the bathroom, for Christ's sake!"

Tweek's fidgeting dissolved into full-on shaking and his noises had become louder.

"'Cuz you would've missed something, gaywad. Craig and Tweek went to the bathroom together and they missed like half of the event!"

His hands, once under the table, were now up in his hair, fisting through the strands, pulling and tugging. He looked like a wreck, like he was going to explode any second, and yet like he was trying to contain the explosion, as if he didn't want to draw any attention to himself. No such luck, though, because Butters was now looking at over him, mumbling a little, "whu-what's wrong with you?" Even Stan had begun to notice something was amiss. Tweek's twitching worsened.

I wanted to help, but I had no idea what to do. I didn't know what the hell was going on. Without warning, then, I suddenly blurted the first thing that came to mind. "Clyde is having a zombie movie marathon at Token's house Saturday, do you want to come?"

It was directed mostly and only at Tweek, but it had been loud enough, somehow, for the entire table to hear, and they all stopped talking about the locker theft almost immediately.

"Right on!" Clyde cried, bouncing in his seat.

"I never said yes to having it at my house," Token muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Well, Craig already announced it, now you have to."

"I want to come," Stan said, and the rest of them agreed.

"I was surprised you didn't invite us on Saturday," Kyle said to Clyde. "You invited Jimmy and Kevin and Jason."

"Dude, we would invite you to _so_ many things," Clyde assured him. "Except our _dad_ isn't exactly your biggest fan." He jerked his head in my direction in a way I think was supposed to be discreet, but his voice wasn't anywhere near subtle, so I couldn't tell if he meant for me to comprehend any of that or not.

"Is it cool if we come, Craig?" Stan asked, smiling at me.

I hesitated, eyeing them as they all watched me expectantly. Of course I didn't want them to come, I _hated_ them, so why would I let them tarnish my precious zombie movie-watching experience? But I'd already voiced the invitation and it would be weird to take it back from everyone except Tweek, so in the end I reluctantly nodded.

They all became highly animated, then, talking about what movies to watch, what snacks to bring, how lame I am, blah blah, the usual, and I tuned them all out.

My eyes turned on Tweek again, and he was staring at me this time, too. He wasn't shaking so much anymore, more shivering, really.

"You'll come, yes?" I whispered.

He nodded.

"Good."

He paused, watching me for a brief second, then mouthed words I distinctly made out as being, "thank you."

It was great to know that I'd actually made something of a difference without knowing what to do or what it was I was saving him from, so I gave him a smile and a small nod.

Then he smiled too. Not like his smile from earlier, that baby one. No, this was a full-on grin, with teeth and everything. It was genuine, too, absolutely lighting up his face so that he was practically shining, and I don't think I've ever seen him look so at peace. I gazed at him in muted fascination and I think it made him a little self-conscious because he averted his eyes, sliding his lower lip between his teeth and biting it nervously, so now it wasn't just a smile, but it was like a half-smile, half-lip bite hybrid and I felt myself getting weaker and weaker the more I looked at it.

I realized several things in that moment, as the world continued to turn around us and the people at our table continued to chat and laugh and all I could see was Tweek and that smile and everything it made me feel.

Safe to say, I had failed my experiment for that day. And my intruder was no longer an intruder, I could see. He was more than a permanent resident; he was like a king, a ruler in me, and I'd given up power to him completely. I was no longer at all like myself, I was some transitionally weird Craig Tucker that was turning into something and heading in a strange direction I couldn't quite make out.

And it was absolutely beautiful.


	6. Invitation

Lunch on Monday was one of those few moments where I really wish a pause button existed for my entire damn life because it would have been fan-fucking-tastic to be able to spend the rest of forever sitting at the same table with stupid Tweek and his stupid face and his stupid little smile, but of course I couldn't pause time. So it kept going, lunch ended, the nine of us at the lunch table parted ways, algebra 2 came and went, and then it was 2:30. And I had homework.

I don't exactly have the kind of time like I used to for actually doing homework, by the way. Not that I ever really used my time productively before, since coming home from school usually meant four hours of video games and TV, dinner, more TV, and then a sliver of time about thirty minutes long to half-ass some schoolwork. But that was _before_ spring break. According to the time table I made with Mr. Johnson, having a job now meant that from the minute the bell let us out at 2:30 until eight in the evening, my schedule promised precious bonding time with Johnson's Grocer and Clyde Donovan. If I wanted any time to spare for playing Call of Duty: Black Ops or watching my guilty pleasure Spanish soaps before bed, I actually had to fit the homework in somewhere else.

I was at least gracious that we had weekends off now, but that was far from my mind. It was only Monday, after all.

Clyde had had to face this same problem, too, when he first got the job, so he already had a solution waiting for me when we both walked into work that afternoon. Before I knew it, the two of us were sprawled out on the floor against the wall behind the register, backpacks open and books all over the place, actually ready to be _responsible_. Well, academically anyway, but it's not like we ended up doing much at work. We barely had a customer, and when we did, we took turns helping them and then came right back to our shit.

It killed a lot of time, too, especially since we took forever to do it. We're not dumb by any stretch (well, I'm not, anyway), but you put Clyde and I in the same room together and it would take us twenty minutes to put on our shoes.

For one thing, two minutes into this homework session of ours, Clyde decided the store was too quiet and that we should take advantage of that stereo system we had and put music on. He handed me Claudia and I told him to keep that thing far away from me if he wanted it to remain in one piece. He got extremely offended at this and one unnecessarily long verbal dispute later, we ended up listening to a playlist on _my_ iPod that consisted of a multitude of song selections from various musicals, and by this point we'd already wasted about ten minutes.

But even _then_, we could barely get started right away because we had to divvy up the homework assignments, and this ended in something of an argument. Clyde and I shared two classes this year and it's always been (whenever we share classes) that one of us would do an assignment for one class while the other did the one that was left. Then we'd exchange, copy each other's work and voila, we'd be done twice as fast.

…well, we'd be done twice as fast if we were kids other than ourselves or maybe _not_ best friends.

Clyde really wanted to do the algebra homework that day, and I told him that if I wanted to fail that class, I would have asked him, so he better start conjugating some Spanish or I was going to punch him so hard his antepassados would feel it.

"And not only do you _suck_ at math, but you _hate_ it."

"I know, but I fell asleep in Spanish today!"

Like hell I was going to let him do it. I hate math, too, but at least I know that two times five doesn't equal twelve. The only occasions I let him do math is when I'm sure a test is coming up for Spanish and I have to review to make sure I knew what I was doing. Anyway, it took some work on my part (a few more threats and a hostage situation involving his Zune), but I finally got him to stop whining about it and he got to work.

"And you better not be writing _me gustan tacos_ for every answer again," I added, glancing at him over my math book. He sighed loudly at this before furiously erasing what he'd already written.

I really couldn't have held that against him, though, if that's what he'd actually written. At least that would have been somewhat relevant and productive relative to his task. I, on the other hand, usually have a harder time concentrating. I swear, when I'm bored out of my mind, I have the attention span of a rodent. My eyes will pass over numbers, over words like "parabola" and "proofs", black ink and white pages, and my mind will be wandering off elsewhere. Normally my imagination takes the wheel here and my inner filmmaker goes nuts. Like, one time we were doing schoolwork at my house, and my mind drifted off so far that my living room had turned into this black and white French film about balloons and a zoo of mythical creatures. Another time I was trying to stay awake in class and suddenly the chalkboard turned into a porthole of a submarine and there was a giant rainbow-colored whale sweeping past us.

Before you say anything, no, I'm not on any drugs.

Usually after I've experienced these visions of mine, I end up using the homework paper to jot down exactly what I've seen. Today, though, I wasn't imagining anything out of a movie. There was no Wild West scene or dramatic lighting or antihero crouched over a dying loved one. My brain was going places I would be embarrassed to admit out loud, and when I'd put pencil to paper with intention of writing an answer to some problem I was attempting to solve, I eventually looked at what I was doing and found that I was actually _doodling_ in the margins.

"Done! How's it going with you?" Clyde suddenly declared, cutting through my reverie like a knife as I furiously flipped through the textbook to figure out what he hell I was originally doing. I don't know how he got done so fast, or even how much time had passed while my mind had been elsewhere, but he crawled over anyway, trying to peer at my paper.

"You're not drawing out camera angles or set designs again, are you?"

I immediately tugged the sheet to myself, but he was somehow much quicker than I, snatching it out of my hands and holding it up to his face. He shook his head disapprovingly at me.

"Hearts? _Really? _I can't copy this shit, man."

I grit my teeth. "They're not _hearts_, they're _circles_."

"This is the lumpiest fucking circle I've ever seen in my life."

"You should try looking in a mirror sometime, then," I snapped, reaching out to grab the sheet. He scooted back farther, out of my reach.

"And who's this little stick figure over here, huh?" He peered closer at the paper. "What's with this hair? It looks like it was attacked by birds."

"I need to finish the assignment."

"You didn't even start it!"

"Then give me the paper so I can start it!"

"Nuh-uh, I need to confiscate this. Token's never going to believe me when I tell him what a lovesick cliche Craig Tucker is. I need some proof."

I held out an open hand. "Give me."

"Ooh, but Craig, I need to know who this is so I can sing the k-i-s-s-i-n-g song accurately!" He made puckery lips and smacking noises at me, grinning at the sight of what must have been the deadpan rage littering my face.

I think Clyde knew what was going to happen next, because by the time I had launched myself off the floor to tackle him, he'd already began crawling to safety. I caught him around the torso as he waved the paper out of arm's reach, so I had to result to socking him as he tried to wiggle free.

We rolled around on the floor in our struggle for God knows how long, and I was somewhat impressed with Clyde's tenacity. I almost resorted to the borderline homo technique that was _tickling_ (which would have definitely worked, by the way; Clyde would start laughing if you so much as sneezed at him), but I was saved from having to do that when a very feminine "_ahem!_" shot through the air somewhere above us. We halted our fight immediately, me quickly rolling off Clyde and Clyde shooting up into a sitting position before whoever was here could misread whatever was going on.

When we both peered upward over the register's counter, we found that the voice had belonged to Wendy Testaburger.

"Um, are you two working here, or did I accidentally walk into a mud wrestling ring?" she asked quite _bitchily_ (or maybe that's just how I hear everything that comes out of her mouth).

Let's clear this up: I have no problems with Wendy. I actually had a crush on her in fifth grade, but of course I would never desire anything that has been where Stan's mouth had been once before, so that fire fizzled out almost immediately. Since then, I've basically avoided her (as I avoid everything that may potentially trace me back to Stan and friends), but when she does anything (like protesting or public speaking or answering a question in class or, hell, even the way she opens her locker), I have to say that I am impressed enough not to loathe her. She is one confident girl, and that deserves some level of respect.

Still, she has the minor setback of sounding like a self-entitled bitch all the time, so it all balances out and I never feel bad being a bitch right back. Also she touched my thigh in the third grade and even after I sued her for half her shit I never forgave her for the sexual harassment.

"We're working!" Clyde grabbed the edge of the counter, scrambling clumsily to his feet. "What's up, Wendy?"

I've always found it hilarious that Wendy is the only girl Clyde is actually too afraid of to try anything with.

"I need cough syrup," she said, looking impatient and annoyed.

He nodded a little too eagerly and, with an inhuman speed, was out from behind the register and bounding off toward aisle one. Wendy folded her arms when he left, her body moving slightly as if she was tapping her feet over there on the other side of the register. I rolled my eyes, turning away from her to look for the paper I'd been wrestling Clyde for earlier.

"What are you doing back there, Craig?" Wendy asked suddenly, less bitchy this time, more curious.

"Uh, I work here," I answered, gesturing at my name tag.

"Oh, and you're working _so_ hard," she retorted, clearly not pleased by the amount of sarcasm in my tone.

"Shut the hell up." I scrambled around the floor some more, still unable to locate the paper.

"If you work here, what are you doing on the floor?" she continued.

"What are you doing _shopping_ here? There's a Whole Foods two streets over."

"Can you not? I get enough of that from Cartman."

"Oh, now you're comparing me to Fatboy. I'm sorry, Wenders, but that's where I draw the line."

"Don't call me Wenders!"

"How about Testy?"

Clyde returned before she could shoot back what was probably going to be some highly intellectual retort that I would feel too stupid to respond to. She fumed as he rung up her cough syrup and angrily shoved over her money when he gave her the price.

It was then that I noticed Clyde had the piece of notebook paper folded and sticking out of the pocket of his smock. I crawled over quietly to grab it from there, but Clyde saw me out of the corner of his eye and, out of reflexive I suppose, flailed wildly and took a step backward. I leapt at him again and ended up shoving him into the postcard display, sending the stand crashing to the floor and postcards all over the place. Wendy's cough syrup also got knocked to the floor, and she let out a loud grunt of frustration.

"Ugh! You two are so wild!" She swooped down, grabbing her cough syrup and shoving it in her bag. "Why did you two even _get_ a job!" And with that, she shoved out the door and left.

"Sheesh, what a bitch," I mumbled, unfolding my retrieved prize absentmindedly while Clyde moved to go clean up the postcards.

"Seriously, she acts like this is the only thing we do all day."

"Clyde, this _is_ the only thing what we do all day."

"…right."

But as I glanced down at the paper between my fingers, saw the hearts and the Tweek stick fingers dancing along its white surface, I thought about what Wendy said. 'Why did I even get a job?' And then I wondered to myself…_why_? This…this thing in my hand, what it entailed…_that_ was what made me happy that I'd gotten this job in the first place. But it wasn't the reason I was here.

No, no, if you think I've forgotten about that movie I've been trying to work on, the real reason I got this job in the first place, the most important thing in the _world_ to me, I'm here to assure you all that I have not, in fact, forgotten. Not in the slightest. It hasn't left my mind.

Well, okay, maybe just a little.

…maybe a _lot_.

Alright, let's cut the bullshit: I haven't thought about it all. So sue me. It's a little hard when my brain's preoccupied with other things. Or, well, other _people_…person_…_you know what I mean.

It was interesting that Wendy of all people would be the person to remind me of this, though. I mean, it was no big deal, really, she just said a few things that reminded me of other things, but she'd serve a purpose all the same.

It was Monday, which meant I'd really only taken about a week-long break not thinking about this. But, for a person whose every waking second lived and breathed this craft, a week was forever. So I was horrified to realize that it had disappeared from the front of my mind altogether.

No…not disappeared. Been _replaced_, was more accurate, which meant it was still in there somewhere, just waiting to come back to me.

I was not going to stand for this, and sure enough, the thoughts bugged me relentlessly until I got home that night. I immediately got to work the minute I crossed the threshold of my room, striding directly to the giant whiteboard sitting in the corner of my room. The board had come to me after walking home one night from Clyde's and finding it abandoned on someone's front lawn, and I had used it for storyboarding back when I was making movies on a regular basis. It hadn't been used in months, so when I removed the clothes I'd hung on it and the papers I'd taped to it, I wasn't surprised to find a pretty hefty layer of dust all over the thing. I cleaned it up, dug some dry erase markers out of the drawer in my desk, and, taking a deep breath, began brainstorming all over the place.

Even though I worked at it for about an hour, though, I didn't really feel like I was going anywhere.

"Alright, so…so the girl gets off the train, right?" I wrote as I talked, my scribbly handwriting legible to only me. I drew an arrow from that sentence to a drawing I'd done of the camera shot in the corner. "And she realizes she's being…" I drew a long line connecting that drawing to one in another corner. "…followed…" I wrote some more things down that I'm not even sure I could comprehend, my brain working faster than my mouth or my hands. Occasionally my mouth would attempt to catch up with my brain and random words would pop out as I wrote them. "…grabs her….stuffs in a trunk…actually a clone…"

When somehow I'd managed to fill every inch of the board with marker, I whirled around to address my listening audience, a tired look in my eyes.

"Does that make sense to you?"

Stripe blinked attentively at me through his cage bars.

I sighed. "Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's stupid." I turned around, dragging my hand straight across the board and effectively wiping out the entire plot I'd just written down as if it had never existed. I stomped over to where Stripe's cage was at my desk, dropping myself into the chair, pulling a sheet of paper and a pen out of my desk, and furiously sketching out something new. "Tell me what you think of this one, okay?" I told him, moving the paper so that it was within eye range for him as I doodled and wrote on it.

I was so immersed in my work that I never heard the door to my room open. I never heard the footsteps either, or the small cough, and maybe she said a few things, too, but eventually Bea's quiet little, "hello," made it past my barriers and registered in my brain.

I nodded, not taking my eyes off my work.

"Mom's on the phone."

I grunted in acknowledgment. I hadn't even heard the phone ring.

"…She wants to talk to you."

I held my hand out behind me, still not peeling my eyes away from what I was doing. She placed the phone into my hand, and I brought it to me, pressing it to my ear.

"Ma," I said curtly, preparing myself to only vaguely listen to the conversation that was about to ensue.

She greeted me like she normally does, that heightened delight of a mother speaking to her child she hasn't seen in a week, but in my mom's case it's tempered by the nasally monotone of her natural voice.

I'm not surprised she's the one calling and not my dad. While I was nurtured into the apathetic sack of sarcasm I am today by no better teacher than my own father, my mom doesn't quite share his sentiments toward me. There is no indifference in her relationship with me; I'm her only son, not to mention her first born, and thus she is horrendously fond of me. And it's not the sort of fondness that compels her to dote on me or treat me like her adorable little baby boy. My mom just gets me and knows how to correctly be affectionate toward me. She gives me my space, knows not to be irritating, is firm without being a tyrant…but underneath that you can just tell that she thinks I'm the greatest thing on the entire planet.

Too bad I was an uncaring little shit, but she was patient with that too.

She's probably the perfect mother for me.

After giving me the lowdown on what sounded like another dreadfully boring family reunion over in Wisconsin (a story I was only half processing), she went off on the usual questions.

Like how I was, which was, "fine."

And how was work, which was also, "fine."

And how was Bea, were the two of us getting along alright, were we eating enough, were we sleeping enough, to which I answered, "we're fine, ma, everything's fine."

"Well if everything's just _fine_," she said, "I wanted to let you two know that we'll be home this Saturday."

"Lovely. Any chance you could make that arrival time at some point before five? Because I've got a thing at Token's that night."

"Depending on how soon your father and I get on the road, that can probably be arranged. Just make sure you're home in time for church on Sunday."

I groaned. Right. With my parents coming home, _that_ was back.

"Craig."

"Sure, Ma, whatever you say."

I could hear her smile knowingly through the phone. "Speaking of your father, you want to talk to him? He's right here, let me grab him."

Had I gotten the chance to reply to this, I would have most likely declined, either politely or with ferocity, whichever would have gotten my point across most directly, because my dad enjoys talking to me as much as I love talking to him. However, I could already hear her on the other end trying to pass him the phone, so any protest was futile.

"Who is it," I heard my dad mumble.

"It's Craig."

"Oh."

I rolled my eyes.

"Don't just 'oh' him, Thomas, don't you want to talk to him?"

"What the hell am I gonna say to him? Just tell him he there better be no drugs in the damn house when we get home."

"Thomas!"

"Hey, ma," I interrupted. "Um, that's okay, I've got work to do anyway."

She tried to apologize exasperatedly for my dad, but I told her to save it. Dad and I don't have a terrible relationship or anything. There's a certain level of respect between us, actually. But we're both very uncomfortable being too buddy-buddy with each other. He has as much of a grip on the foreign concept of emotions as I do; there was no reason to put us in a position where we had to _converse_.

After an unnecessarily elongated goodbye (elongated because her end of the goodbye was littered with reminders about taking our vitamins and going to sleep early and three different ways of saying, "I love you" and "I miss you") I hung up, tossed the phone at Bea, and turned back to what I was doing.

Preoccupied though I was, I didn't miss the distinctly lacking sounds of door opening and retreating footsteps that I expected to hear. I paused my writing mid-sentence, feeling the eyes of my sister boring into the back of my skull.

"What are you doing?" she finally said.

I sighed. "Don't you have homework or something?"

She scoffed. "I'm in the _fourth grade_ and it's the first day back from spring break, of _course_ I don't." Oh to be young and free.

"Well, _I_ do," I said. "So get the hell out."

"This doesn't look like homework." She was looking at my board. I could sense it.

"Whatever, okay? Just get out. I need to concentrate."

She didn't respond, though, _or_ get out. On the contrary, she wandered further into my room, touching all the stuff I told her never to touch, moving things I told her _needed_ to stay in one place, stepping on the carpet with her _shoes_. I glared and grunted, but didn't object.

"Ooh, this is nice."

I snapped my head around. She had picked up Token's ukulele from my side table and tried strumming with it.

"Don't touch that."

She glanced up at me, still plucking at it.

"It's not mine."

She kept strumming.

Muttering death threats under my breath, I got up out of my chair, dragging myself toward her and reaching out to grab it from her. She jerked it back, though, out of my reach, and I felt an unfortunate sense of what you could call déjà vu (although I haven't called it that since I watched _The Matrix_) from this afternoon. I kept my hand out, my face set as I stared at her, not down for this keep-away-from-Craig bullshit people seemed to be so fond of playing with me today.

"Whose is it then?" she asked, watching me.

"It's Token's. He's letting me borrow it."

I inched closer and she took more cautionary steps toward the wall, eyeing me curiously as she did. "Why?"

"Does it matter."

"Yes."

"Would you just give it to me?" I swiped at her, but she was too fast and kept it out of my grasp.

Her eyes traveled down to the instrument in her hands, then locked on me again. "…Token's home?"

"Well, _duh_."

Her face lit up. "Are you going to have him over?"

I could detect a hint of excitement in her tone and I rolled my eyes, sighing loudly. "Why do you _always_ have to think my friends are hot? It's so weird."

"Because they are!"

I shuddered. "Token, maybe, but Clyde? You serious?"

"Clyde is cute…"

"Clyde is not cute. Let me tell you who's cute—" I stopped, realizing what the hell I was actually saying out loud. You can go ahead and guess who the next name out of my mouth was going to be. Instead of finishing my thought, I shook my head. "Alright, _fine_, I guess if you end up marrying one of them, maybe I'd actually have people to hang out with at family parties."

Bea didn't react to this as I would have expected, though. She chewed the inside of her cheek, glancing down at her feet. "Speaking of you having cute friends…" she finally managed.

While she was distracted, I snatched back the ukulele. She didn't even put up a fight, she simply let it go. "What?"

It took her a long while to come out with it. I'd long since put the uke back on the night stand and was striding back to my desk when suddenly she blurted, "are you gay?"

I halted, body tensing up, eyes widening, but not turning around so she could see all this. "What."

"Are you _gay_?"

The repetition of the question only made it hammer home _harder_ in my heart (let us have a moment to soak in that delicious alliteration) and I couldn't help but whirl around quickly, staring very intensely at my younger sister, who read my face immediately and widened her own eyes a bit.

"_What?_" I half-shrieked, and I couldn't believe I was capable of such a decibel or pitch in my tone. "What the hell?"

Bea had been twisting her fingers in a slight nervousness I've never seen her wear, but my volume must have pissed her off or something because she suddenly crossed her arms and cocked an eyebrow at me. "Well, I went to Karen McCormick's house after school today—"

"You didn't talk to her brother, did you."

"That's exactly it! He's the reason I'm asking!"

"Motherfu—" I swore, slapping my palm against my forehead. I drew my hand across my head and down the back of my neck, attempting to calm down. "What'd he say?"

She glanced upward as she attempted to remember. "Er, something about how I need to find a boyfriend and make some babies or else mom's not getting any grandkids."

I stared at her in disbelief.

"Also about how the Tucker name is dying with you since your pee-pee isn't down for baby-making."

"God, I fucking hate that guy." I made a mental note to kill Kenny the next time I saw him. And after killing him, I was going to wait at his house so I could kill him again when he woke up in bed the next morning.

"Well," Bea said suddenly, interrupting my murdering fantasies, "are you?"

"Am I what?"

She threw her hands up in the air. "Gay!"

What was I supposed to say to that? Yes? I certainly couldn't trust myself with 'no', so I scoffed, stuttering out the first words that flew to my mind. "Are _you_ gay?"

I froze. Bea did too.

"…_excuse_ me?" she finally said, staring at me in bewilderment.

I pressed my palms into my forehead, already regretting those words. "God…"

"What the hell kind of response was _that_?" Bea cried. "'Are _you_ gay'… That's not even a legitimate response, let alone an insult. That sounds like something Clyde would say, for God's sake. Who are you? You're never that lousy!"

"I know, I _know…_" I moaned. "What the hell is the matter with me?"

Bea was silent for a moment, and I could feel her eyes on me. "…you _are_ gay," she finally said, saying it with such confidence that I wanted to go ahead and say, 'yes, yes I am.'

"What, are you trying to say gay people can't throw out a good insulting comeback?"

"I'm _saying_ you're working so hard to avoid the question that you're being stupid with your comebacks."

No one knew me better than this girl right here, apparently. There was no use hiding it.

"Alright. Fine. Yes. I am. Happy?"

I wasn't sure if she was going to start making fun of me or something, but I certainly did not expect to see her eyes widen in surprise. "You're _gay_."

"You say it like no one's ever been gay before."

"No, no… I just always thought you were incapable of having feelings for anything human."

"Well, no, that's not completely false, I do still hate everyone. In fact, I don't know if you would even classify me as gay or straight, I really only, well, _don't_ hate just one person that just so happens to be a guy."

Bea was so overcome with excitement (I could see it in her face) that she climbed upon my bed, sitting cross-legged and gripping her knees. "Is it…?"

Figuring she was going to be here awhile, I sat down next to her, leaning back on my open palms. "Yes, it's…it's _him_."

"Wow…" she breathed. "All this time we've been talking about him, you've been wanting to bone him."

"What? No! No! It's not like that!"

"So you don't want to bone him."

"Oh, well, I mean, I didn't say _that_…" I paused. "Wait, no, _stop it_, I'm not having this conversation with you."

"Yeah, that's kind of awkward."

"Mm."

We sat in silence for a long time. Stripe began running around his cage, three cars drove by, and a dog barked down the street.

"So you, er, '_don't hate_' this guy?" Bea finally said, glancing sideways at me.

I swallowed loudly. "I…like this guy." I…I'd never said that before. Not out loud. Not even in my head. But saying it felt somehow _amazing_. I decided to try it again. "I like him?" Not quite the same as a question. "I like him." But even better the third time. "I like him."

"Yes, you've said that four times now."

I turned to my sister. When she frowned at me, I know I was making that face again. My _excited_ face. "No, you don't understand. I _like_ him. I really like him. I like him a lot."

"Seven times."

"I'll say it a thousand times, you wanna try me?"

"How about you try saying a little more than that?"

So the conversation went from me saying, 'I like him,' to suddenly telling her exactly what it _felt_ like to like him. I'd never really…liked a person before, not like this, so the only way it could make sense to me was when I compared the emotions to more tangible things that I was used to.

"It feels like... it's cold and you wear laundry that just came out of the dryer. O-or doing the wash and you find a ten dollar bill in your pants pocket. Or like…using a certain brand of detergent that just smells so _glorious_ that you almost don't want to wear your clothes because then the scent will eventually go away."

"Oh, God, not the laundry metaphors."

"Liking him is like…nothing else matters, y'know? Like I can't think about anything else. It's strange, actually. The weirdest thing is that I only realized this yesterday, but it already feels like eons, you know?"

It was one thing to simply talk about Tweek with her like I'd been doing for the past week or so. That was harmless, really, although a big advance in our relationship. But to talk about stuff like _this_ with her, to drag…_emotion_ into it, emotion I didn't even know I was capable of feeling, it was…different. I didn't talk about this with anyone, let alone her, but then again, I'd never had to talk about stuff like this with anyone before. It'd never came up, but finally letting it out now, like a breath I'd been holding in for too long, felt surprisingly nice.

Realizing this reminded me that I also didn't like feeling things, didn't like feeling nice or talking about anything with anyone and this was starting to get far beyond weird, so I made her leave, and she left without much complaint.

That night I had a dream I was swimming in the ocean, deeper, where it should have been darker, but the whole ocean glowed luminescent like hazy purple Christmas lights were strung all around from an invisible ceiling. I was coasting on my back, breathing as if I were on land, watching dark shapes pass beside me, behind me, under me, in front of me, each glowing with a tinge of purple, none distinguishable as any oceanic animal I was familiar with. The only thing I could discern is what was floating above me. They're rays. All of them, twisting together as they float past me, and they're different colors, blue and green and yellow and I find myself hypnotized.

I never see him but I feel him, as if he's everywhere, wrapped around me and I wake up entangled in my sheets and clutching a pillow so tight it hurts, still feeling it.

The dream sits with me when I wake up, sit up, get dressed, walk out of my house. It latches onto me like a leech, all the way until lunch Tuesday afternoon.

It got to the point where midway between something Token was saying or something Clyde was saying, I don't know, I suddenly blurted, "what do you think dreams mean?"

Whatever they were talking about, they don't object to the interruption.

"Duh." Clyde bit into his sandwich. "They tell the future."

"_Actually_," Token said, "It's the result of thinking about something too much. A reflection of your subconscious. What concerns you most."

"That's boring."

"Clyde, anything that doesn't involve magic or dinosaurs is too boring for you."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

I'd been silent, musing on what Token had said, before finally murmuring a small, "huh."

"You having some heavy dreams, man?" Token asked.

"No," I said. "Well, y'know, just the usual stuff people have dreams about. Um, weird shit, flying…elephants, that sort of thing."

"Well I hear dreams are supposed to be symbolic, too, but that's the kind of stuff Clyde would swear upon—"

"See, now that's more interesting."

"—but I don't know what to prescribe to, uh, flying elephants."

"No, the first thing you said was okay," I told him. "That would explain a lot." I sighed deeply, leaning into my open palm and gazing across the courtyard at the table a few yards away. My lunch hadn't been touched. I don't even remember what I was eating.

"Why so glum, chum?" Clyde said.

"You going to ask Tweek to sit with us again today?" Token asked as he followed my stare.

"No."

Token glanced at Clyde, who shrugged and through mouthfuls of sandwich said, "Craig's probably afraid it'll end up with him sitting with Stan and them again."

That was at least half-true, so I decided to roll with it, groaning, "I never want to experience that torture ever again. Remember that time I told you guys to shoot me if I ever turn into a hipster? If I ever sit with those morons again, please, barrel to my forehead and pull the trigger."

In reality, though, the real reason I didn't want to go ask him is because I didn't want to hear another no from him.

I also didn't want to talk about this anymore because I didn't want them to ask any more questions that will hit too close to home, so I sat and prayed for one of them to change the subject, and to my delight, Clyde suddenly told Token he should come visit us at work today. Token couldn't see a reason to say no, Clyde got excited about that, the rest of lunch continued without us returning to the original conversation and when it was 2:30 the three of us walked past the bus stop together in the direction of the store.

Mr. Johnson was still there when we pushed past the front door and into the store. I know I rarely mention him; it's because we hardly ever see him. These days, though, he was forced to stick around and run the store until we got off school and traded off, so I guess we were supposed to be seeing more of him.

He waved at Clyde and I the minute he saw us, hopping off the stool he was sitting on behind the register and handing Clyde the ring of keys to the store.

"Listen, boys," he said. "It's been pretty slow today. Not many people, maybe twenty or so, so if it doesn't pick up in a few hours and you kids wanna head out early, be my guest."

Clyde and I exchanged a grin.

"Now this ain't gonna be a regular thing, but you two have been working pretty hard during your whole spring break, so I don't see why you can't stop and rest for a day."

We nodded and thanked him and once he'd walked out, Clyde made a dive for the now vacant stool. Before he could firmly plant his ass on it, though, I shoved him off and to the floor, gesturing for Token to sit there instead.

As usual, Clyde began whining. "What? C'mon, don't make me sit on the floor, there's never been a stool in here before!"

"We have a guest." I threw myself down onto the floor next to a pouting Clyde, and Token laughed at the two of us.

For whatever reason, Token's presence managed to motivate both Clyde and I to actually get homework done without any goofing off. I suspect it's because he's so studious himself that the two of us just feel incredibly dumb around him and undertake some sort of obligation to redeem ourselves by working harder. Whatever the reason, it was miraculous how vigorously the three of us had been doing our respective work, Token on the counter, Clyde and I on the floor.

We were doing pretty well for the first two hours, stopping every so often to talk or snack, and we got a decent amount of work done. After the next thirty minutes, however, Token decided to go use the bathroom, and when he left the room, so did all our motivation.

When he returned, he found our homework abandoned and Clyde and I sitting on empty vegetable crates by the side of the front counter, rubber bands from the register in tow, shooting pennies off into the aisles and trying to beat each other from how far we could get them to go.

"And this is what you guys do all day when I'm not around."

"No, no, sometimes we fight crime." Clyde said.

"Uh-huh. And won't one of you have to clean all those up?"

"That is when we Roshambo for it," I said.

Token glanced at Clyde. "You're the boss, right? You don't just make him do it?" He nodded at me.

"Dude, where's the fun in that?" Clyde cried, abashed.

"This is all very simple, Token, I don't see why you have to complicate it," I added.

"Yeah, get with the times."

Token sighed, giving up.

"Yeaup," Clyde sighed, leaning back as he shot a penny at a remarkably far distance. "When we're not being masked vigilantes or stocking grocery store shelves, we're training for the penny-launching Olympics."

Clyde and I casually bumped knuckles before I loaded my rubber band with a new penny and pulled back to launch it.

"Of course, when we're not doing any of _that_ Craig over here stalks blond kids and tries to obsessively demand names out of them."

The angle of my penny-shooter jerked sporadically as I let go of the band, shooting my small copper missile nearly square in the direction of Token's face. Fortunately, he's like half-ninja, I swear, because he caught it inches away from its mark.

"Sorry," I mumbled sincerely.

Token bat his eyelids rapidly at me, which is what he usually does when he's about to fuck around with me. "Oh, Karl's customer friend is _blonde_, then?"

"What? Who the hell is Karl?" Clyde asked.

I glared at Clyde, remembering that he was the reason I'd almost taken out one of Token's eyes just a second ago. "Shut the hell up, that's who he is."

"No, _no_ Craig, I will _not_ shut the hell up," Clyde protested, suddenly standing up. "You need to be upfront with me about this man, because if you _don't_ have a raging hard-on for Tweek, then there's gotta be a better explanation for how much of a pussy you are about him."

I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. Clyde had said more than enough, now all I had to do was wait.

_5…4…3…2-_

"Wait, the blond is _Tweek_?" Token half-shouted in his surprise. "The _customer_ _friend_ is Tweek?"

Bingo, right on the dot.

"You're damn right he is!" Clyde declared, not comprehending the shock in Token's voice. "Craig is, like, _in love_ with the guy, for crying out loud."

"Clyde, I swear to God, I will end you." I stood up now, too, rounding on him with a balled fist.

Clyde stared at my fist, then at my face, and frowned. "Calm yourself, _Bruce Banner_, it's called a joke, maybe you've heard of them?"

…of course Clyde was kidding. And why wouldn't he be when everything is a fucking joke to this guy.

I left my fist drop to my side and averted my eyes, feeling a little stupid for blowing up like that. There was over-defensive and then there was what I just did, and I'd probably just blown my whole cover.

And, just as I presumed, there was Token off to the right of me, mulling over what the hell was going on. I could see it on his face, but I'd have to deal with him later.

"Alright, if it's _not_ to get in his pants," Clyde continued, and, judging by the still present scowl on his face, I could see he was thinking hard about this, "then the only other explanation for all this is that you…want be his _friend_."

"Yeah? So what if it is?"

"You don't want to be _anyone's_ friend! I'm surprised you still want to be friends with us!"

"Oh, well, that's because you're both just such goddamn peaches."

"So if you're _this_ desperate to be this guy's friend," Clyde went on, ignoring my sarcasm, "then…" He paused, realization lighting his face. "_Oh." _

And then he stopped. Just like that.

I tensed up again.

"'_Oh_' what, Sherlock?"

"You're trying to _replace_ us."

I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. I don't know what else I expected him to say, but that was definitely not it.

"Ugh, you haven't seen the guy in _eight years_, why would you want him instead of us? Us, who have been there for you since the beginning, through every…every stupid movie you made us watch, through every afterschool detention, through every vacation where we had to babysit your damn rat?"

"He's a _guinea pig_, Clyde, how many times do I have to tell you—"

"You two didn't even hang out that much before, come on!" He voice was getting progressively whinier, nearing that pitch where it would soon be impossible to discern what he was saying.

I definitely understood that last thing he said, though. "Wait, what? We didn't?"

"No, and you know why?" he said, his tirade picking up momentum. "It's because you were hanging out with _us_, your _best friends_, or, I don't know, a bunch of the guys, or usually by yourself, but never just the two of you." He stopped to take a breath. "You'd know that if you did some research before you went around _replacing. Your. Friends_."

I wanted to ask something more about this, but Token beat me to speaking, rolling his eyes when he did. "Craig is _not_ trying to replace us."

"Maybe not trying to replace _you!" _Clyde cried. "You're the rich one! You're irreplaceable! But me? I'm dispensable! Lovable and cuddly best friends like me are a dime a dozen!"

I could hear a sob in his tone and I knew the crying was on its way.

"Why are you so fucking over dramatic?"

"Oh, yes, when _Tweek_ flips out about shit, that's okay, that's okay! But when it's everyone's pal _Clyde_, well, I don't want to be seen in public with _him_ anymore." The tears were welling already, I saw the shine in his eyes.

"Clyde—Clyde, stop, would you shut up? I am not _replacing_ you. Who the hell in the world would I be able to replace _you_ with?"

He sniffed.

"You know, it takes a very special class of human to be able to provide the presence in my life that you do."

Clyde wiped his nose on his sleeve. "Really? You think I'm…irreplaceable?"

"If that's how you want to put it, okay. Besides, if I had to replace you with another chubby moron, it'd take years to break him in with all the abuse."

He smiled a little. "Aw, Craig. That's sweet."

I grunted in response.

"No need to be a fag about it, though."

"That's right I don't, so don't make me have to do it again. Now go pick up the change, you fucking crybaby."

Clyde grinned, trotting off to go retrieve all the pennies we'd launched down aisle nine. There was probably about forty cents down that aisle, I'd wager, and there were no more pennies left in the register.

Token graciously waited until Clyde was gone long enough before rounding on me.

"Would you care to explain, then, if you're not trying to make him your new best friend, what _exactly_ it is you want with Tweek? Because if this new information has anything to do with the story you told me Sunday—"

I held up a hand. "Save it. I'll tell you later."

"Will you really."

"Yes, Token, yes, I promise. It's a bit of a long story, now's not exactly the best time." I paused to let him soak that in before, with a small grin, quickly adding, "besides, who said I'm not trying to make a new best friend?"

He looked ready to say something more after that, but the bell above the door jingled and the two of us automatically turned around. Even Clyde skidded back down the aisle to see who it was.

It was Tweek.

He'd been staring down at his feet as he'd come in, but when he looked up, he saw me first, and I don't know if my brain just made it up or _wanted_ to see it or maybe if it really happened, but I saw some faint trace of _delight_ littering his big stupid eyes.

Anyway, that may or may not have been some remnants of the delight that was probably flooding _my_ eyes, because if happiness was food, I sure as hell had enough right now to feed an entire third world country for a year. The store was practically suffocating with it. I probably could have bottled it and sold it, if I wanted to.

Then, of course, almost instantly a second later, Tweek's eyes found Token, and Clyde, too, and whatever I'd seen in his face instantly fell, and he looked nervous, especially since all three of us were watching him expectantly.

"_…_why are you all looking at me?" he cried, tugging on his shirt nervously.

"Er, no reason," I said. Token nudged me hard enough to propel me forward, so I shoved my hands in my pockets and shuffled closer to Tweek. "What's up?"

"I, uh—"

"You know," Clyde declared suddenly, stepping out of the aisle and stomping over to us. "You are here _all_ the time." There was nothing hostile in the way he had said it, but the fact that he'd said it at all was enough to make us all stare at him. "You were here, like, _every day_ last week."

"What are you doing? Cut it out," Token muttered.

"No. No, I am _talking_ to Tweek." He faced him again. "Do you wanna live here? I can…I can build you a _house_ out of the boxes of soda."

"What? No! Um, god…" Tweek stared helplessly at Token and I. "What did I do? Should I leave?"

"Maybe you should!" Clyde said before Token rounded on him, slapping him on the back of the head and muttering, "quit it, you darn fool."

"No, you don't have to _leave_," I sighed. "Clyde's PMSing at the moment, don't worry about it."

Clyde had something to say to that, too, hissing out, "homewrecker!" before Token could clamp a hand over his mouth. When Token removed his hand, Clyde almost spoke again until Token shot him a stern look and he shut up, scowling off to the side.

When Token turned again, the stern look was gone and was replaced with one of his calming, melted butter smiles. "Tweek, man, what's good? We didn't get to talk much the other day at lunch, it's been awhile dude. I heard you've been back for a few months now, how you doin'?"

Tweek blinked furiously, like too many words had been thrown at him at once for him to react to all of them quickly enough. "Hm? Uh, I'm good, I guess." He stuck his tongue out in thought. "Mmyeah I haven't seen you in years." He paused. "No! Well, I've_ seen_ you… You probably haven't seen me, but I've seen you!" He paused again. "At school, I mean! I'm not a crazy stalker or anything!" He grabbed his hair in frustration.

Token laughed. "Relax, dude, I get you. Why didn't you say anything sooner, we could've all been hanging out this whole time."

"You wanna hang out with me? Why?"

"Because we used to hang out all the time, don't you remember!"

"That was a long time ago, man!"

"Well, right now is now and we wanna kick back with you. We're gonna see you on Saturday, right?" He smiled kindly and Tweek stared transfixed at him before nodding slowly.

"Do you even _like_ zombie movies, Tweek?" Clyde said, eyeing him coldly. I'd forgotten he was still standing there. "The Tweek _I_ remember was scared of _everything_. Isn't that bit much for you?"

"I like them!" Tweek said defensively, furrowing his brows a little. "Well, they're okay, I mean, I guess I like movies _in general_."

If I wasn't listening before, now I was.

"Oh, really," Clyde said.

"Yeah, man! When you _see _the jacked-up shit on a screen it…it reminds you that it's not _real_. B-because a movie's fake, y'know?"

"Except for the ones based on true stories," Clyde said, not sounding convinced.

"I know! But still, the stuff in the _movie_ itself isn't real, right? That's why it's a movie? It's a temporary escape, for a second you're somewhere else, and when it's over, it's over man. It's…_comforting_."

Token laughed light-heartedly at that. "It's what now? Shit, do you subscribe to Craig's newsletter, or something?"

"Okay, Tweek, I'll bite," Clyde said, uncrossing his arms. "Does that mean anything _not_ in a movie is real? That what you're saying?"

I wanted to tell Clyde to stop being stupid, that his logical fallacies were embarrassing me again, but then Tweek spoke first.

"Obviously! Like drampires!"

Clyde paused. We all paused, really. "Drampires?"

"Y-yeah! A dragon crossed with a vampire! One of those mythical creature hybrids! Never seen a movie about one of those, and they're out there, I _swear! _Breathing fire, sucking blood—Oh god!"

I watched as Clyde kept his gaze on Tweek, frowning in what looked like a mixture of confusion and intense thinking. Seconds passed before finally his face split into a grin. "And I bet they fly, too, like _twice as fast_ 'cuz it's part bat _and_ dragon!"

"And their fangs are HUGE!"

"Does it look like a giant vampire lizard or some kind of tiny bipedal dragon?"

"Both! The females are the giant vampires!"

"Can a human be turned drampire?"

"No way, man! The dragon instincts motivate it to eat its victims more often times than not. That's why they're so rare, man, they don't turn enough people! They have to turn dragons, and you can imagine how many of _those_ are just lying around."

I turned to Token. "What the hell are they talking about?" He shrugged.

Clyde was laughing now, as if his misplaced jealousy issues from earlier hadn't happened. "Dude, I cannot tell if you're serious or not, but that is fuckin' _sick_." He moved to slug Tweek in the shoulder, but the kid flinched away, shrieking as he did.

"You just tried to punch me!"

"No, no not like that!" Clyde protested. "It was a friendly punch! Look!"

He turned and socked me in the arm. _Hard_.

"What the _fuck_ Clyde?"

"See, _that_ was a punch out for blood. Not what I was going to do to you. This," he turned and punched Token, although it was more of a tap, "that's what I was going to do. Get it?"

"No, I don't think he got it," I said. "I think he needs another demonstration." I strode over and kicked Clyde in the shin. "No." Then I pet Token's head. "Yes."

"What the hell did you do, did you cripple him?" Tweek cried, watching as Clyde flailed around in his pain.

"If only it were that easy."

Clyde hobbled back toward us, wiping furiously at his eyes with the back of his arm. "Motherfucker. Can you believe this guy, Tweek? I don't blame you for being a dick to him last week."

I backhand slapped his arm. "Hey, don't act so fucking nice all of sudden, like you weren't being a bitter asshole just a few minutes ago. At least apologize."

"That's in the past, alright? Hakuna Matata, Tweek?"

"Um."

"Right. Okay, I'm starving, who wants to get dinner?"

"What?" Token asked. "You're just going to leave?"

"Yeah, I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry!"

"Not the point. Tweek, you want to come?"

"Wait, wait," I said quickly. "You're just going to leave."

"Yeah!"

"Dude, it's only six o'clock."

"So? You remember what Johnson said, we could leave if it's slow. And we've had a total of one customer in the past three hours." He gestured at Tweek. "And he didn't even buy anything!"

I sighed. "I usually regret agreeing with you about things, but that sounds pretty tempting, actually."

"I'm also the manager of this place, so, really, who are you going to get in trouble with?"

"I will never understand you, Clyde Donovan," Token said with a grin, shaking his head.

"Goddammit, fine, let's do it," I decided. I turned to Tweek. "You coming?"

"Huh? Go with you guys?" I nodded. "No, um, that's okay."

I frowned. "Why not?"

"I have to go—I left, ah, uh—home, I gotta get home, it's…I just…that's okay."

He'd been backing up the whole time he'd been speaking, and was about to spin around to exit, but I grabbed his arm.

"This isn't about what Clyde said is it? He didn't mean it, dude."

"No, it's not that, I really gotta get home." He tugged at his arm and I released it.

Before he reached the door, though, I said, "why'd you come here, then?"

He stopped at that, his hand wrapped around the door handle, his back to me as he stood there flexing his fingers around the metal.

Enough time passed before he turned around slowly, not staring at me, but staring at my chest or my shoulder or my hand but definitely my face.

"I guess it would be okay if I didn't go home right away."

"Yeah?" I half-grinned. I couldn't let this end without me getting one jab in at him. "Not afraid your parents will fuck your shit up over it later?"

His eyes widened at that and shot a look up at me. "Oh God, you think they will?"

"Maybe, I dunno, you're just being _so_ irresponsible…"

Then he realized I was just teasing him, or I could only assume so because his eyebrows furrowed and I thought he was going to hit me. "You want me to go with you or not?"

I snorted. "I was kidding, relax."

And then I think he really did try to hit me, but fortunately Token piped up behind me. "You're coming?"

Tweek forgot about the assault he was about to perform, glancing over my shoulders at Token. He nodded. "I—uh—I don't have any money, though."

"You came into the store without any money?" Clyde asked, cocking an eyebrow.

Tweek tensed up, his lips shut tight, but I was already speaking before he could answer that. "I got you covered, don't sweat."

Clyde and Token stared at me. Tweek, too, looked at me with apparent surprise.

"What?" I said.

Tweek waved his hands about in front of him. "No, you don't have to—"

"I want to, it's okay."

"That's…nice of you," Token said.

"Yeah, what gives man? Whenever I need money you make Token pay for me."

"Whenever you guys _don't_ need money you make me pay for you."

"What's the big deal, I'm paying for his dinner, not buying him a house," I said defensively. "I can't be generous?"

"You can't be anything that has any positive connotation attached to it."

I really didn't have any decent way of explaining my random act of kindness other than the truth, which I'd rather not say as it has to do with the fact that I happen to be attracted to the kid I was offering to buy a meal for. I could offer nothing more than, "I don't have to explain myself to you assholes, can we go now?" which, to my relief, worked well enough for them. We packed up our stuff, filed out the door, waited for Clyde to lock up, then began making our way down the street.

"So where are we going?" I heard Token ask Clyde, and I just barely caught the cheerful response of, "McDonald's!" before noticing the absence of a fourth set of footsteps walking along with us.

I turned to find Tweek still lingering at the door, watching us tentatively with his hands wrapped painfully tight around the hem of his shirt, looking like he'd rather we leave without him.

I gestured for him to follow. "Come on, dude, we're leaving."

When he didn't move right away, I stopped too, standing there in the middle of the sidewalk, giving him a look that told him I was refusing to budge until he got his ass over here.

He frowned and I cocked an eyebrow and he scrunched up his nose in displeasure and I shook my head disapprovingly and we had a minute-long stare down that ended with me as the victor and him reluctantly shuffling towards me.

Once we got to walking, I slowed down enough to keep at his pace and put enough distance between Token and Clyde walking in stride ahead of us. I watched Token glance behind at me curiously, and I wave him off dismissively.

For the first few minutes, as we walked side-by-side, no words transpired between us. Tweek looked almost pensive next to me, so I let the silence pervade long enough before risking conversation.

"Are you okay?"

He used his right hand to rub at his left arm and nodded. I didn't know how to respond to that, and I didn't want to press, so I moved on to something else.

"He had a point earlier you know," I said.

I watched him out of the corner of my eye, and I can tell he wa slightly startled by my question.

"Who?" he finally asked.

"Clyde."

"What point?"

"You do come to the store pretty often."

He uttered one of his involuntary noises before biting down on his lip to suppress it. I could tell by how quickly his next words came out that he was trying to divert my attention away from his previous noise when he snapped, "so what if I do?"

"I'm just saying he was right," I continued before gazing over at him with a lazy grin. "It wouldn't have something to do with the extremely handsome and charismatic raven-haired boy that happens to work there, would it?"

He scoffed. "There's someone like that working there?"

"Oh, ouch."

And there, briefly, gone before I could fully appreciate it, was the twitching of his mouth muscles in what was surely something between a tiny grin and a soundless laugh. The intensity of the feeling I got at the sight, though momentary, had the potential to melt the sun.

But it was gone before I could commit it to memory, quickly shut down and replaced with a feign look of fear. "Is that supposed to be you? You've got ravens in your hair? That's not right, man, those things carry diseases!"

I laughed loudly. Token and Clyde turned to stare at me with inquisitive looks—I'm not surprised; laughter is a strange thing to come out of me. I think it has the same effect on people that bad omens do. I flipped them off, though, just for good measure.

"You're ridiculous," I said, punching him gently on the arm. To my delight, this combination of action and words from me produced that crooked grin from him again, long enough this time for me to absorb it greedily like some kind of intoxicating drug.

"I was serious!"

"My point exactly."

The silence was back, after that but it was different this time. It was nice. I liked it so much I was almost afraid to ruin it when, moments later, I said, "I'm not complaining or anything, but what have I done to deserve you suddenly being so nice to me?"

"Nice?" He laughed in a way that sounded almost nervous. "You have a strange definition of what nice is."

"So I've heard," I said. "Seriously, though, just a few days ago you were treating me like the scum of the goddamn Earth. And now, suddenly, you're _talking _to me and, for God's sake, _smiling_, which, might I add, is hard, believe me I know, but you really ought to try it some more, 'cuz it just does things to you I'm not sure you're aware of."

He soaked that in for a moment. "…was I really that bad?"

"Look, I don't give a rat's ass about what anyone says to me or does to me. Sticks and stones and all that shit, but—" I don't want to say _it's different with you_ so I shrugged instead. "I'm sure I deserved it, it'd just be nice to know why."

His fingers played with his shirt hem again, nervously touching it. "I would _hope_ you wouldn't blame me, if you knew where I was coming from."

"And where is that?"

He didn't say anything.

"Tweek."

"It doesn't matter."

"It does."

"It's dumb."

"I can handle dumb. I hang out with Clyde, I don't think you can get much dumber than that."

He shook his head furiously. "I can't…I won't tell you."

"Lame."

He smiled weakly. "Weren't you grateful just a second ago that I was being nice to you at all? Isn't that enough?"

"And you never told me why the change of heart."

I could see the golden arches looming in the distance.

"No reason to deny you a second chance, I figured."

"I didn't even know I'd failed my first chance."

He just offered me a helpless smile, weaker than the last one, and there wasn't much else that could be said because we've already arrived at McDonald's and Token and Clyde were within earshot. The sight of Clyde and Token caused Tweek to clam up, and when the four of us walked in together, Tweek lingered behind us again just as timidly as he had been when I'd had to coax him away from the store. I decided to give him his space, following Clyde and Token to the register. They were already ready to spill out their orders without even a glance at the menu, and I was, too. We'd been here enough times to know what we wanted.

Tweek, on the other hand, when he managed to make his way over, was staring with wide eyes up at the names and pictures of food, looking so lost and confused that I was convinced that McDonald's was not an eatery he frequented often. A line quickly formed behind him and when the woman right behind him cleared her throat (I flipped her off, of course, the fat bitch), he shrieked out that he wanted Chicken McNuggets. He exhaled a sigh of relief as the cashier rung up our orders.

I noticed Tweek's eyes on the ten-dollar bill I pulled out of my wallet to pay for the food.

"I'll pay you back," he said urgently.

"No, please, do not do that."

"Don't buy me something and expect me to not pay you back! What if you need that money?"

"It's four fucking bucks, when the hell am I ever going to be in desperate need of four dollars?"

"Wh-what if you're buying something with a check later in life and…you're short four dollars in the bank so your…your check _bounces_ and the bank comes after you and takes away your house and you're homeless and die and it'll all be my fault?"

"I can almost one-hundred percent assure you that is not going to happen."

"But what _if_?"

"I'll deal. Now drop it."

"I'll stuff the four dollars in your backpack when you're not looking!"

"If four dollars mysteriously end up anywhere near me, I'm going to return it to you with another five dollars, and then you'll _really_ feel bad."

I had a feeling we could talk about this forever, but we were still standing at the register and the collective glares from the people behind us were intense enough to be palpable, so we followed Token and Clyde to find a table to wait for our food. Clyde picked out a booth, sliding easily into the bench. Token followed him and I sat across from them. Tweek stood next to the table, wrought with the decision of where to sit, although there was obviously only one seat. It took him a moment, but he finally planted himself right there on the bench next to me, and with a noticeable gap of space between us so that he was really only half sitting on the bench at all.

I realized how acutely aware I was of the things he did when, out of my peripherals, I observed his fingers, poised on the tabletop, flexing and twitching and looking ready to reach out for the stacks of napkins and receipts sitting in front of him. Token beat him to it, though, stealing one of the receipts from the top and glancing at it.

"Damn, Clyde, is this yours?" he asked. "Three orders of fries? Really?"

"I am a growing boy, thank you very much."

"Clyde, dude, I don't think you could _grow_ any more if you tried," I said.

Token snickered.

"Don't harsh on my love affair with those meat-flavored slivers of potatoey goodness."

I snorted. "I'll bet you ten bucks you can't finish all three in under two minutes."

"Make that twenty bucks."

"Fifteen."

"Twenty-five."

"You're supposed to go down, not up."

"Thirty."

"Don't even bother, man, numbers just confuse him," Token said.

"Ten," I tried.

"Deal! You'll be eating those words, sucker!"

"Just like that time I bet you couldn't finish that entire grande meal from Taco Bell?"

"I finished it!"

"There was still one taco remaining."

"Hey, I even ate the fucking crunchwrap and the nacho bell grande, I think I deserve extra points."

"Extra points, maybe, but not the ten dollars."

"Fuck you, Craig, we can't all be delicate eaters like you."

"I take my time and I don't eat ten tacos and four burritos every time I go to Taco Bell, there's a difference."

"Whatever man, you—" He stopped suddenly, staring curiously over at the spot next to me where, when I turned to follow his gaze, I finally noticed what Tweek had been doing the entire time we were talking.

The napkins that had been sitting in the middle of the table were now drawn to his person, one between his long fingers now taking on the shape of a triangle. He faltered mid-whatever he was doing, aware of the lapse in conversation and conscious of our eyes on him.

"Uh…" Clyde said suddenly as the triangle was folded into a smaller one. "What are you doing?"

"Gah! Folding!"

The three of us decided not to question this anymore and just watched him. He kept going, pausing at one point before making his mind up about whatever and continuing. Within seconds he had finished what he was doing, then gingerly pushed it across the table toward Clyde.

"…is this an Apatosaurus? Made out of a paper napkin?"

Tweek nodded furiously.

"Dude. I _love you_."

He flushed in surprise.

"Wow, dinosaur origami. Impressive," Token admitted, grinning.

Again, Token's comment startled him.

"What else can you make?"

At that, he pulled another three napkins toward himself, folding, creasing, tearing, constructing, and within minutes he pushed something new toward Token.

"Whoah, dude, koi fish. That's crazy!"

He lit up again at the compliment, then spared me a brief glance out of the corner of his eye. He pulled more napkins to himself and did the same thing with them.

"This is a fucking manta ray, you psycho-ass paper folding machine," I said in disbelief when it sailed between us across the table in my direction.

My words were not quite as tactful as the other two's, which explained the confused frown on his face, but, trust me, if I could adequately express awe, that would be it.

"How did you learn how to do this?" Token asked, absentmindedly nudging his fish in circles on the table.

I began to see a pattern in the way Tweek reacted to being looked at by or addressed by or even being in the vicinity of these two and maybe most people: he was always at first startled, like a bird being abruptly approached by a foreign creature and not sure how to react immediately, whether with fear or caution or acceptance.

"Um," he managed after a moment, "my dad's been buying me origami books since I was younger. It—" He hesitated, and to anyone else it would seem completely natural. The location of the pause, however, was not lost on me. "…uh, it's just a hobby."

There was no easy way to pry deeper into that, so I said the next thing that was on my mind at this moment (and every other moment, really). "I don't know if you're aware of how amazing you are, but you are, okay?"

His first reaction, besides his normal wide eyes and alarm, was to open his mouth and spill out unintelligible nonsense. He looked immediately mortified thereafter and buried his face in his hands in embarrassment. I was almost too busy being enamored with how fucking goddamn precious this was to notice Token and Clyde exchange a look and two grins that, all the same, didn't go unnoticed by me. I glared at them.

I heard the guy at the register call our numbers, but none of us moved. Well, I didn't move because I was sandwiched between a person and the wall, and I'm assuming that's why Clyde wasn't moving either. Token, however, hadn't stirred in the slightest. Only Tweek had done something that even resembled movement; he'd made the motion of standing up immediately but when he noticed the rest of us not reacting, he stopped, probably assuming he'd done something wrong or misheard the guy.

Token and Clyde's eyes were fixed on Tweek, smiling at him. I cocked an eyebrow at the two of them.

"You guys going to get up or what?" I asked.

"No, ah, um, I think one person is enough," Token said, glancing at Clyde. "Wouldn't you agree?"

Clyde nodded. "Definitely. Wanna rock, paper, scissors for it?"

I shrugged, holding out a fist. Clyde immediately shoved it back toward me. "Noooot you."

Tweek frowned but doesn't object. He tentatively held out his own fist and the three of them began, with Token counting off.

"Rock…paper…scissors…Go."

And at "go", Clyde suddenly shouted "booga booga!" right at Tweek, causing Tweek to shriek and open his hand wide in surprise. Token and Clyde both formed scissors with their fingers.

"Tweek, if you'd be so kind," Token said, smiling sweetly at him.

After getting over the initial shock of having been shouted at by what looked like a crazed and rabid Clyde, Tweek shakily got to his feet. "You guys rigged that!" he protested. "Why would you do that?"

"We need to talk to Craig. Hurry back."

I saw a series of emotions flash on his face, as if he was too overwhelmed to pick just one to settle on. It was obvious he wanted to argue about this, but he chose not to, spinning bitterly and stomping away from us.

The minute he was gone, Clyde turned to me. "Are you sure you don't have the hots for him?"

"Shut up. Why are you guys being such assholes? I mean, more than usual."

"Ooh, the king of assholes is calling us assholes, I think we should be offended."

"Don't get mad, dude, we really did need to talk to you alone."

I frowned. "What's this about, then?"

"Right, so Token and I have been deliberating—" Clyde started.

"That's a big word for you."

"That's the word Token used. So anyway, we were doing that, and we decided that if he's going to be our new friend, he needs to undergo a strict examination."

"…what."

"Just an interview and a test."

An_ interview _and a_ test?_ Just what the fuck? I didn't even know where to start with this.

"Don't," is all I could manage out when Tweek was suddenly back. We immediately stopped talking, glancing up at him. He had one tray, which he dropped noisily on the table. Clyde's food apparently took up its own tray, so Tweek still had to go back and get that, which he did, but not before sending a glare my way.

When he was gone, Clyde started talking again.

"Oh, we're not doing it now. We'll strike when you least expect it."

"What—I…" I was at a loss for words, I really am. "Is this really fucking necessary?"

"It'll be fine," Clyde assured me. "We just need to find some things out about him and us, is all."

"I just need to know he's normal." Token added.

"He's anything _but_, I do hope you've realized."

"Hey, hey…I live in South Park, okay, I have a pretty high tolerance for the abnormal. As long as he's not a serial killer, I'm good."

I wasn't able to continue this horrible conversation because Tweek returned again, throwing himself down into the booth and snatching his food to himself. I could feel the rage emanating from him, and I wanted to say something, but I don't know _what_ in a way that won't potentially offend him.

As the four of us began digging into our food, Clyde wiggled his eyebrows at me. I glared at him, shaking my head slightly, trying to be subtle but still firmly saying, _no, Clyde, no_ with my eyes.

"So, Tweek," he went ahead and said. "Have you committed any felonies in your lifetime?"

It was a joke, I guess, harmless, really, but Tweek was perhaps not the best audience. He suddenly started choking on his food and I had to fly to his need, thumping him on the back and encouraging him to drink from my soda. Calming him down took a bit of time and after that, neither of the two across from us were keen on asking any more questions. We continued the rest of our meal in something akin to a silence shared by hungry teenage boys with unspoken tension, although at one point Clyde did attempt my two-minute fry-eating challenge.

He failed, miserably.

"Oh, god, so much salt, give me my soda."

For the next five minutes Token and I played keep-away with his soda until he started crying and we begrudgingly handed it over.

He downed it so fast that it was no surprise when not more than ten minutes later, he nudged Token in the shoulder and said, "I gotta tinkle, let me out."

Token moved, allowing Clyde to step past him. "I'll come with you, I gotta go, too."

As Clyde walked off and Token followed behind, I reach over Tweek to grab Token's arm. "Don't let him out of your sight. I would like to leave this place sometime before it closes, and preferably without getting kicked out."

Token saluted me and trotted after Clyde.

The awkward silence was back the minute they were gone.

Tweek poked quietly at his fries.

"You okay, Tweek?" I finally manage.

His fingers twitched.

"Hello?"

"I'm great, I'm _fine_."

"Sorry, but I'm not _dumb_."

"Could've fooled me," he snapped.

I sighed. "Are we back to that? What did I do?"

He said nothing.

"Are you mad?"

That seemed to be the trigger question, because his head snapped up and he shot a glare in my direction. "You guys got rid of me just to talk about me, of course I'd be mad!"

"Oh, that…"

"'_Oh, that_,' uh huh, say it like it's nothing, then."

"No, you're right, okay?" I don't know what to say to this. "Um, I'm sorry about that, they…they're...it's just—"

"They don't trust me."

"No, no, it's not that. Seriously, don't mind them, it's nothing."

"It's okay," he said, his voice smaller now. "I don't trust them either."

"Well, that's just fantastic." This was not going as amazingly as I'd hoped.

He ran a shaky hand through his hair. "I don't trust anyone, though, so it's nothing special."

"Do you trust me?"

"You're not special, Craig."

"Then why are you telling me any of this?"

He didn't respond to that.

"Whatever, man, you don't have to trust us. And you don't have to be mad."

Still no response, so I continued.

"And you don't have to be nervous."

"Who says I'm nervous?"

"Seriously?" I nodded at the various paper creatures on the table.

That was just a bluff, really, I had no idea if that was what his intent was for making those things, but the reaction on his face gave him away. "I said it was a hobby!"

"Mm. Hobby, huh." He obviously didn't like that I had unearthed that just now, so I tried something else. "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

He was thrown off by the abrupt change in subject. "What kind of question is that?"

"A fair one."

He stared at my face, as if assessing my true intent with the question. At last he grunted in annoyance, leaning the side of his face into his left hand.

"An assassin."

I did not expect that one.

"…Excuse me?"

"For hire."

"…what? That's not too much pressure for you?"

"No way, man. The assassin's the one with the gun, remember? They have control. No one fucks with an assassin."

"Are you serious?"

He just looked at me.

"You're not serious."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Are you?"

"And when I'm not doing that, I want to be a housewife."

"What, huh?"

"Think about it, they don't have to do anything."

"I beg your pardon, they do plenty of things."

"They just stay at home, clean the house, cook the food, take care of the kids. That's way controlled. I can handle that. You go out into the world and you get a job and there are a thousand things on the line. At home, it's just…what are we having for dinner? Should I clean the upstairs bathroom or the living room today? Let's go join a cake decorating class."

"Um—"

"And maybe I want to mow lawns. And deliver mail. And be a librarian. Stamp books, type on a typewriter, that answer your question?"

If anyone could derive the sarcasm in all the babbling, it would rightfully be me.

"Okay, I get it, you're not going to tell me. Sheesh, you didn't have to be so difficult."

He made another noise of irritation and turned back to his fries.

"What about coffee?" I tried again.

He tensed up. That obviously touched a nerve, which was good because it meant I was getting somewhere. "What about coffee?"

"Doesn't your dad own a coffee shop?"

"I want nothing to do with his coffee shop."

"But I thought you loved—"

"I drink coffee. Doesn't mean I love it, doesn't mean I want to spend the rest of my life hanging out with it."

He paused, and I knew there was something more ready to come out, so I didn't say anything, and lo and behold, with his tone considerably more level, he sighed and suddenly it all spilled out, like he'd been holding it in forever. "It's not even the coffee itself, okay. I mean I like coffee alright, but that's because I'm so used to it. I've been drinking it since I was three years old, can you believe that? My _parents_ gave coffee to their three-year-old, who does that?

"And I'm trying to wean myself off of it with substitutes and shit. Ice cream, tea, y'know, because I'm addicted to it, like any normal human being but worse because I'm far from normal. It…that shit fucks with you man. But no. It's not the coffee. It's dad and it's his business and I'd rather not involve myself with it."

"Why not?"

"The coffee business… it's fucking with him, man."

"What do you mean?" I chose my words carefully, cautioning myself against anything that might set him off.

"Coffee itself is not the problem, man, but it's part of it. It's like some legal drug, y'know, addicting and people keep buying it and dad passes it off as some poetic bullshit with all his fucking metaphors. But it's wrong, I know it is, something like that can't be right. Ever since we lost our business to Harbucks, he's been obsessed with trying to get it back. He's done some shady shit, man. Some sketchy-ass business. I don't want anything to do with that anymore."

"Anymore?" But apparently I'd been getting greedy here; I'd said one word too much. Tweek registered it and his eyes got big again and he'd realized all the things he'd just said. He averted his eyes, the twitching of his fingers intensifying.

"Forget I said anything!"

There was no point in me tiptoeing around anymore. "Remind me how you don't trust me again?"

"Shut up, shut up, I didn't mean to tell you any of that."

"You're really bad at this." I smirked.

"Fuck you, this stays between us, you manipulative asshole."

"Baby, your words wound me. My lips are sealed."

He was still glaring, but the conversation was most definitely over when we saw Token walking back to our table. I momentarily forgot Tweek when I noticed that he was alone.

"…where's Clyde?" I said the second he was within earshot.

Token sighed, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "I couldn't stop him."

I was up instantly, not even stopping to see Token or Tweek following behind me. I reached the kids' play area in seconds, and, just as I suspected, there, chin-deep and swimming in the ball pit, was Clyde.

"Guys, come on, this is _totally_ boss!"

"Get the hell out of there," I said, gripping the sides of the entrance. "And stop saying everything is boss."

"No to everything you just said." And then he dove back in.

"What if he drowns? Or contracts a disease?" Tweek cried. "Did you know people leave used syringes in there? What's wrong with him?"

"I've been asking myself that same thing for a long time," I assured him. I turned back to Clyde. "If you don't get the fuck out of there, we're going to get kicked out."

Unfortunately, I was dealing with Clyde here, and with him, things are rarely that easy. He dove further into the sea of multicolored plastic balls and I growled irritably.

"Don't make me take my shoes off." But he was far-gone—both distance-wise and mentally.

I glanced left and right, saw that we had yet to be noticed, then nudged off my shoes. I swept down and grabbed them before shoving them into Token's chest.

"Hold these."

"No, dude, _two _of us in there?"

"I would love to stand idly by and let him humiliate himself, but I would also like to continue being a patron here and there is no other way."

"You're not going in there, are you?" Tweek said. "Are you nuts? You want to get AIDS?"

"Oh, does that worry you?" I couldn't resist grinning at him.

It apparently didn't, though, because he shoved me hard and instead of gracefully nose-diving like I'd been planning to do, I fell in like a doofus, flailing around in my disorientation for a brief embarrassing moment.

When I righted myself, I gingerly stepped across the dirty smelly square of colored plastic, underestimating how deep the thing was and slipping again in the process. It took a bit of work to scramble to my feet a second time, and when I did, the shuffling I had to do to maneuver my way over to Clyde made me feel like even more of a dolt.

"You must be in heaven over there, Clyde, being face-deep in balls and all," I shot, shoving the colored plastic out of my way as I stomped over to him.

"You are the last person who should be making gay jokes at me," he laughed.

"Whatever, get over here."

"Whatever? You're not even going to deny it?"

"Do I have to drag you out of here or what?"

"Make me, homeboy." He held up a ball in his right hand as if he was planning on chucking it in my direction.

"You throw that at me, and it will be the last thing you ever do."

And then he did. It was all over.

I heard Tweek shriek somewhere behind me, and it was probably a reaction to the onslaught of colored balls I began assaulting Clyde with.

At some point Token made his way into the thing with us and there was an all-out war going on in the ball pit. Tweek was left outside with the two pairs of shoes until Clyde somehow made his way over there and dragged him in with us. He flailed around in the ball pit like a fish out of water and I felt so bad that before I could go save him and salvage whatever was left of his composure, I had to go kill Clyde.

The whole episode ended with us getting kicked out (but not banned like I'd feared) and, like how everything we do ends, Clyde crying.

The four of us walked out of the place and down the street panting with exhaustion, but grinning and laughing and our cheeks red.

"Well that was fun," I chuckled sarcastically.

"Hey, you gotta admit: if we're going to get kicked out of a place, it may as well be like that," Token said.

"Dude, that was awesome, I don't even care that you punched me!" Clyde said to me. "And, man, Tweek! You were a beast in there! Did you guys see the way he got Token straight in the face with the green ball? Token! The black ninja!"

"I didn't mean to!"

"But you did, that was amazing!"

"Hanging out with us wasn't so bad, huh?" I said, nudging Tweek with my elbow. "And you didn't want to come."

He ran a hand through his hair and mumbled out a shaky but sincere, "yeah, it was…it was nice."

I was glad he thought so. I really was. I would happily accept these words from him, anything more than seeing his animosity from earlier, anything more than seeing his fears and anxiety and discomfort.

We were too tired to speak much, so we all walked in silence, a comfortable silence, and at some point we reached a part down the street where Tweek announced that he had to leave, that his house was nearby.

He was leaving. He had waved goodbye to us and was walking away and I kind of didn't like the finality of it.

"Tweek," I blurted quickly.

He turned around expectantly.

"Today was good, dude. It was nice and…I'm sorry about anything and…don't worry about what we talked about, okay?" I didn't know what I was saying; when I heard myself speaking, it didn't make much sense to me, just sounded like idiot babbling, but I was surprised when a look of something like understanding crossed Tweek's face and he nodded.

That was encouraging so I continued.

"Um, and I'd like to—maybe…see you."

God, this was weird. I'd really been planning on saying this all day, and I still hadn't figured out a way to make it not come out as awkward as it inevitably was. I'd made it a point my whole life to push everyone away and keep them away that I didn't know the first thing about inviting them in.

"That is," I went on, "we should…um, I mean…"

So horrendously awkward. I could see the confusion littering everyone's faces, and I did not blame them.

"Just…you could hang out with me—us! Us. More. Whenever you want."

"Yeah Tweek," Token agreed quickly, saving me from what must have been obvious humiliation. "It was really fun today."

"And we're not always troublemaking delinquents, I promise," I added.

"He's lying," Clyde coughed. I shot him a look.

Tweek gave me a half smile. "Maybe." He turned, walked off, and that was that.

"So slick," Clyde snickered, elbowing me.

I socked him.

All I got was a maybe, but that was more than a no, more than what I thought I deserved, and I clung to it.

Never had one word held so much promise for me.


	7. Fascination

Maybe it was stupid wishful thinking on my part, but I was kind of _hoping_ that the turnover from my offer—the offer I'd made to Tweek to hang out with us more whenever he wanted—would be immediate. That, as if by _magic_, he would immediately get over whatever discomfort he had with us and mostly me and nestle himself comfortably in the space we'd left him in our bro square. Soon we'd be hanging out after school, on the weekends, everything would be great, honky-dory, it would be like he'd always been with us.

But we went to lunch on Tuesday, and there, straight across the courtyard, angled once more at a position where he was directly in my line of sight (almost like he was _dangling _himself in front of me, that asshole), Tweek again sat with Stan and Kyle, looking exactly like his normal self, as if Monday and dinner at McDonalds had never happened.

"I don't get it, we're cooler than them, right?" I asked Token and Clyde, both of whom sighed. They'd been trying to get me to talk about anything other than why Tweek wasn't sitting with us for the past fifteen minutes, but I wasn't budging.

"Since when do you even care about being cool anyway?" Token asked.

"I don't, okay, I don't care, fuck you."

"Calm down, Craig."

"Shut up, you calm down."

In what I suppose was an attempt to not provoke me further, they both kept quiet, but they would have to try harder than that if they wanted to tame me.

"Do you think maybe I didn't ask him correctly?"

"_What?_"

"Do you guys remember what I said? Maybe I stuttered or he misheard me or—I mean, I did sound kind of stupid, do you think—"

Token held up a hand. "Dude, can you get a grip? It's been _one day_, he's not going to leap into your arms the first chance he gets. Give him some time."

"Or maybe he's just not interested," Clyde offered cheerfully before stuffing the last of his sandwich into his mouth. Token gave him a reproachful look. "What? I'm just saying, is all."

And though Token kicked him under the table and he tried to quickly salvage his tact by saying, "did I say not interested? I meant maybe he wants to _surprise_ us, huh? Huh?"—Clyde had given voice to a worry I'd been toting around this entire time: what _if_ he's not interested? And I'm not talking about not interested in hanging out with us or being friends with us, I mean not interested in _me_. What if forgetting him the first time had already long since fucked up whatever chance I'd had at redeeming our past relationship that anything I'd been doing _now_ was utterly fruitless?

…and when I wasn't worrying about _that_ I was worrying about the fact that I was worried about this at all. Or why I was _feeling_ anything at all, because as much as I tried to deny it to myself, clinging to all my worry regarding Tweek was just the smallest ounce of what I deduced to be _disappointment_, another one of those feelings I never really ever…felt. No amount of reasoning on my part could account for this startlingly sudden change I was undergoing in the emotions department. Picture a robot having a switched turned on inside of itself, the ability to _feel_ slowly coursing through its system like it seemingly never has before. It takes a while to get used to.

Strangeness of my feelings aside, I could not say that they didn't in fact exist and to such a degree that I was willing to give up hope on this whole friendship-with-Tweek thing just so they would go away. That is, until the next day, when Clyde and I were walking to the cafeteria together, and we ran into Token.

He had a surprise for me.

"Look who I found!"

"Gah!"

"Tweek," I said, surprised to see him appear from behind Token's back.

"Yep," Token continued, "apparently he has history near my biology classroom. Convenient, eh? And don't worry, I already asked him to eat with us."

"And?" Clyde asked, just as curious as I was.

When Token said nothing, Tweek nodded vigorously.

I didn't know what to say or how to react at this point, but fortunately I wasn't really given a chance to do either because Clyde immediately cried out in excitement before pulling Tweek in for a headlock and a noogie. I could have rescued the poor kid from this (he started shrieking in alarm and flailing in Clyde's grip) but I took this moment while they were both distracted to address Token instead.

"Wait, how did you convince him? What did you do?"

He shrugged. "I just asked him."

Well, that was easy._ Embarrassingly_ easy, and I was a little baffled about that, to say the least.

"You just asked him? That's all?"

He smirked, elbowing me in the arm. "He's a person, man, and, contrary to popular belief, people don't just fall into place at your silent pleading whims. They're actually susceptible to these things called _words_. You might want to try them some time."

I could not match Token's sarcasm, nor could I argue with it, so I figured it would be best to be gracious instead.

"I don't know what I've done to have been blessed with your acquaintance, but no matter what Clyde says, you're now the favorite."

Token eyed me. "You still haven't explained what's going on."

"And I will." When his inquisitive stare didn't waver, I quickly added, "I'm serious. When the time is right." Since there was nothing more to be said about that, I patted him reassuringly on the shoulder then turned around to see that Tweek had long since gotten himself out of Clyde's arms and was now furiously running his hands through his hair.

"I don't know how much that's going to do, dude. Your hair was pretty far from help before," I said, grinning at him.

His hands froze mid-comb through, his eyes shooting daggers at me beneath thick strands of blond bangs.

I laughed. "I'm _kidding_. How's your day been so far?"

"How come you never ask me about _my_ day?" Clyde interjected, pouting.

"Because I don't care."

"How _was_ your day, Clyde?" Tweek asked curtly, sending another reproachful glare in my direction—and I don't think he'd bother with this if he knew how much I loved these looks of his.

"It was horrible! Let me tell you…" Clyde grabbed Tweek's elbow and the two of them walked ahead of us.

Token and I followed behind them, and watching the two of them, or more specifically, watching _Tweek_ walking in front of me with the knowledge that he was all ours—all _mine_ for a whole lunch period…well, it was pathetic, really, but that thought alone was enough to twist my stomach into a delightfully painful little knot.

"What?" Token asked beside me.

I glanced over at him in the corner of my eye. "Hm?"

"Why're you doing that?"

"Doing what."

"_Smiling_, dude, what's so funny? It's creeping me out."

I had no idea what he was talking about, so I moved my fingers, pressing them gently along my lips, only to find that they were indeed curled into the tiniest of toothless smiles, and it was only then that I took note of the tugging sensation in my face muscles.

I hadn't even realized I'd been doing this, and, as I soon discovered, I was hard pressed to _stop_.

_what are you doing to me _

"It's nothing," I answered, struggling and failing to tame the grin I wore. "Nothing at all."

I won't bore you with the details of just how well my first lunch at school with Tweek went, because while it did in fact go _well_, my standards for what is _well_ also happen to fall along the same standards others consider "boring." He'd ended up sitting next to Clyde and across from Token, which I didn't let bother me too much because I was just content with him being there at all. He didn't talk much, and whatever the other three of us were talking about wasn't of much consequence, just the typical shit that I forget about the minute the lunch bell rings. I can't even remember what the four of us were eating. It was as much a bore as one could manage, but on my end, where I _like_ things nice and boring, this was more than I could ask for.

It was enough to tide me over until lunch the _next_ day, Thursday, where I didn't find myself, ah, _craving_ that particular company with as much vampire thirst as I had the previous day. I was bent over at my locker putting my books away at the time, exactly twenty-four hours after Token and Tweek had showed up the day before. Clyde was with me, of course, because we always walked together after fifth period and I _always_ needed to make a pit stop at my locker.

"So Heidi doesn't want to go with me to prom anymore…" he was saying, his voice tinged with a surprisingly small hint of sadness or whine as he leaned casually against the locker beside mine.

"That's nice."

"No, it's not nice, dude, it's bad! Would it kill you to care about my problems for one second?"

"It might."

He made a disgruntled noise. Not his usual cry of protest or persistent pestering or even his predictable retorts regarding how much I'm an "asshole" or other such synonyms.

I found that curious, so, sighing, I relented. "Okay, Clyde, why did she change her mind?"

"I forgot to cancel my date with Millie on Saturday before she bragged about it to Heidi."

"Oh."

"Yeah, so now Millie isn't an option either since now she realizes I was unintentionally two-timing her best friend. That's just great."

"Well, you're an idiot, so you probably deserved that."

"This sucks! I can't go by myself!"

"You can't ask someone else?"

"Dude, girl gossip spreads like the fucking Bubonic Plague. Half her friends are probably off-limits by this point."

"Heh, you know, you could always take Kevin. You guys are practically girlfriends anyway."

"Would that be weird? 'Cuz I was considering that…"

I almost smacked my face on my locker door with the speed at which I snapped my head away from it and up to stare at Clyde. I saw that he was gazing past me, down the hall to where, when I turned to follow his look, Kevin was indeed standing a few feet away, fiddling with his own locker.

I glanced back at Clyde. "Are you serious? I was just kidding."

He flustered. "No, not like that! Like bros! I mean, it wouldn't be me completely going by myself, it'd be like having a wingman, since you _refuse _to be mine."

"It's fucking weird to prey on girls like they're wounded gazelles, I _told _you."

"Whatever, you're just not interested because girls aren't your gender of choice."

"Says the guy who wants to take another guy to prom with him."

"I told you it's not like that!"

I smirked, my tongue sticking out slightly at him. "Be a dear and buy him his ticket, too. Slip it in the cockpit of an X-Wing Fighter toy, then zoom it through the air at him when you pop the question."

"Seriously, dude, I hate you so much—"

Then he stopped abruptly. I snuck a look up at him to see him still staring across the hall, and I began to wonder just what was so fucking fascinating about Kevin Stoley that could compel a person to stare so intensely at him, but then Clyde took off down the hall, pushing his way past people, his sneakers squeaking against the linoleum as he ran faster than I'd ever seen him run before. He kept going past Kevin and down to the further end of the hall where I now saw Tweek walking, a pile of books cradled to his chest as he made his way down the perpendicular hallway. Clyde was racing right toward him, halting so suddenly in front of him that he almost ran into him. The fact that he hadn't actually hit him didn't mattered because Tweek was so startled by his unexpected appearance that he dropped everything he was holding with a shriek loud enough for me to hear.

Clyde quickly bent over and picked up all Tweek's things, righting them and returning them to him with an apologetic grin. Then he began talking, very animatedly with his arms wildly gesturing. Tweek stood by, watching him with muted fascination, the way someone at the zoo might watch a dancing monkey in a cage. At last Clyde asked him something, which I only assumed because he finally stopped talking and looked ready for a response. Tweek hesitated, then nodded before pointing down the hall. Clyde looked happy enough to want to tackle him to the floor, and for a second I thought he was actually going to, but he refrained and let Tweek go on his merry way.

When Clyde trotted back to me, he immediately resumed his place against the locker he was at earlier, but didn't say anything regarding what the hell just happened.

It took a few minutes of me standing by waiting, then finally demanding, "what was that about?" before he said anything.

"I asked Tweek to have lunch with us, he's just putting his stuff away. He's going to meet us outside."

"You—you asked him."

"Yeah, well, you're too chickenshit to. Figured I do us all a favor."

There it was again. He just asked him, just as Token had, and it sounded so _simple, _and of course it must have been if even Clyde could pull it off.

I didn't know what to say to that, so I simply put the rest of my stuff away, shut my locker, and walked along with Clyde in the direction of the cafeteria, all without saying another word.

We passed Kevin on the way out, and I grabbed him by the shoulder, causing him to jerk around in surprise.

"Eat with us," I said, it coming out as a command rather than a request.

Clyde frowned in confusion beside me before he started beaming so brightly he could have blinded us with his smile. "You mean it?"

I nodded. I didn't explain myself, but this was to be considered a small retribution for what _he_ had just done for _me_.

Kevin blinked between us. "Okay? Thanks, Craig…"

"Whatever. Also Clyde has something to ask you."

I walked on ahead, letting the two of them chat excitedly behind me. From what I could gather, Clyde had a new, very male prom date.

And lo and behold, there, outside, sitting at our lunch table with Token, was Tweek.

With the five of us all there, that was more people than our lunch table had ever seen before.

It was nice.

* * *

It hadn't taken much for me to discern the pattern in the kind gestures of my two friends. I knew, despite the fact that none of us outright said it, that while they both were more than happy to welcome Tweek to our group, they were inviting him on _my_ behalf, because I couldn't bring myself to do it, though I desperately and obviously wanted him there. But amidst their willingness to do me this service, they had both made a rather glaring point: if I wanted him, I just needed to _ask_ him.

Keeping this in mind, I realized on Friday that the training wheels were off and it was now my turn.

I had been thinking about it all day. Literally. I'd even been thinking about it the night before. But, no matter how many times I rehearsed the scene in my head and no matter how many ways it ended for me, I didn't know where to even find the kid, I had no idea where his classes were or what, and I was on the verge of giving up by the time fifth period had rolled around.

Thinking back on it, I guess I could have avoided all this trauma on Friday if I'd just asked him to eat lunch during lunch of _Thursday _if he wanted to have lunch with us again the next day. Perhaps in a big group setting it would have come off as more casual. We were already immersed in the activity; it would be natural that I would make such a request, no big deal. Yeah, that definitely would have been preferable. That sort of no pressure nonchalant scenario was much better suited for me. Don't think I was sitting there the whole time with my chin resting on my laced fingers _not_ thinking about doing this, though; the timing was just never right. If Kevin and Clyde weren't talking about something geeky, their voices peaking in volume with each excitable thing they had to say, then Token and Clyde were trying to interrogate Tweek, and he was already so flustered that I didn't think me adding another question onto the pile would have helped much.

Plus, okay, even during the lulls in conversation, I would take one look at him with the intention of opening my mouth to speak, and then I would freeze up and find myself wordless.

So I never asked him, and it just ended up bleeding over into Friday.

You don't understand. This sort of thing is difficult for me. Talking to him, that's not so bad, it's just the inviting part that I don't know how to do. I don't know how to proactively reach out to other people. I'm the kind of person that sits there and lets people come to me, I'm the kind of kid who never gives enough of a fuck to even initiate conversation. Trying to invite someone into sharing an experience with me (even just an experience like sitting across a lunch table and never exchanging more than a few conversational words and the chance eye contact) was unfamiliar territory.

And yet for whatever reason I was determined to try it.

This whole ordeal made listening to my history lecture more difficult than usual, so I'd excused myself to go to the restroom. I mean, it was true: I really had to pee. I just ended up deciding to stroll around and find one as far away from my history room as possible.

The farthest one I knew of was the one Tweek and I had broken into that Saturday during Stan's track meet, so I went there, way on the opposite end of the school. I shoved into the door when I found it, my fingers already attacking my pants' zipper the second I got in, and then I noticed that the boy undoing his own pants by the urinal was, by some crazy happenstance of the cosmos, Tweek.

I used the time it took me to quickly redo my pants to wonder what exactly were the odds that we would run into each other in this same bathroom at the same time on this day of all days, and, realizing how random this was, I decided to chalk the meeting up to fate, something I didn't normally believe in.

I saw that Tweek hadn't noticed me right away. He'd jumped at the sound of the door opening, I remembered, but I guess he just assumed it was some boy and didn't bother looking up.

I folded my arms, leaning against the doorframe.

"Is this the only bathroom you use?"

The sound of my voice, which I'm guessing he immediately recognized, made him shriek a shriek that was doubly magnified in the bathroom. His hands flew to his crotch, covering it up as if his dick wasn't still tucked away where the world couldn't see it, and stared at me in alarm.

"W-what are you doing here?"

"I just came in here to reapply my makeup, what else would I do in a bathroom, am I right?"

"You're being sarcastic!"

"Oh, _brava_, you freakin' genius you."

He made a noise that was a cross between one of his normal ones and something angry. "I really hate you sometimes, you know that?"

"In my world that is the highest form of affection, so I love you, too."

He rolled his eyes and I strode over, making my way toward a urinal and going again to undo my pants. Tweek remained where he was, off to the side now, hugging his body still from his shock from earlier. He didn't move to return to finish doing what I'd interrupted.

"You really need to work on this thing you have with peeing around me."

"There is no thing!"

"There is a thing, and don't think I'm going to go pee in a stall again just to accommodate this _thing_ because we both know how well that went last time."

He took that into consideration, then began walking past me, toward the door.

I grabbed his arm. "Ah, ah, no walking out either, stay here, take your piss, it is not that fucking difficult. I'm not going to attack you when you whip it out, trust me."

He stared at me for a moment before reluctantly backtracking, walking over to a urinal one over from mine and shyly going to undo his pants. He kept glancing over at me to make sure I wasn't staring at him—I wasn't, but I do have peripherals I'm sure he wasn't aware of. I wasn't _creeping_ or anything, I'm not a fucking pervert, but everything he does is ridiculously amusing so I couldn't help but take note of how he lightly touched the zipper and how slowly and carefully he tugged it down, all done so methodically it was like he was dismantling a bomb. I tore my eyes away before he got any further than that, though—I wasn't a pervert, I wasn't a Kenny, I _wasn't_.

But goddammit if I don't have one hell of a fucking imagination, because this highly respectable decision to avert my eyes didn't hide the undeniable fact that we were both in a very private place with ourselves exposed and that's kind of weird but I mean…people have sex in these bathrooms, I know it, I've heard the stories from Clyde, and I've always thought it was disgusting, come on, it's a fucking bathroom, people shit and piss in here, you want diseases that bad? But that vacant wall over there was looking very inviting, that sink looked just low enough, I think those stall doors have sturdy locks. You maneuver two people well enough, hoisting one, locking legs around another, and the possibilities were endless.

And it was empty. It was the bathroom on the farthest end of the school. You could be as loud as you wanted, could grind someone into delirium in here, no one would ever know.

I'd never thought about this before. I never thought about sex at all, really, and I know that's kind of different considering I'm a teenage boy, and I'm sorry but I have no interest sticking my junk where it doesn't need to go-but the combination of elements that made up the situation we were currently in made it impossible not to think about it and that was very bad because the last thing I needed was to get a stiff one in this fucking disgusting dirty _very isolated_ bathroom while the particular cause of my current discomfort stood not two feet away.

I tried thinking of something else, anything else, but trying to temper my mind away from pushing him up against the wall was not easy. I got as far as turning the thought into something less sexual, into something boring and simple like us sharing a sink to wash our hands because one of them is broken and Tweek is afraid of the rusty pipe water, and hey, let me dry your hands off for you, kid, no big deal, oh say so I always kiss my fingers when I'm done washing them, you don't? that's cool, let me take care of that for you, too, then—

But, if not sexual, that was at least fucking adorable and gooey and gross and it wasn't working so I started screaming, 'abort' in my brain and resorted to plan b which is always imagining Clyde holding up his shirt and doing the truffle shuffle.

At last, it worked (it always worked) and I was able to calm down and glance over and, oh, there was Tweek, peeing without a care in the world, unaware of the mental war I had waged with myself just a second ago.

I breathed out heavily, and again realized that the two of us were alone in the bathroom together, and a thought came to me so suddenly that I acted on it instantly.

"You like having lunch with us?"

He blinked, obviously not expecting conversation during this sacred time. "It's…different than Stan and Kyle and them."

"Good-different or bad-different."

"Neither. Just…different."

"You want to? Again?" I paused. "Today?" as if that wasn't clear.

He frowned. "I was already going to…"

"Hm? Clyde ask you already? Token?"

"No, I just—" he faltered. "I just assumed it was okay—am I overstepping? I don't have to, I shouldn't have assumed, I just thought, well, it was an interesting kind of different, I wanted to try it again, but, oh god, I didn't think that maybe it _wouldn't_ be okay, um, look, I don't have to, it's okay, don't worry about it—"

"You can have lunch with us every day from now until we all drop dead if you want to, don't think twice about it."

"Until we drop dead? That's like forever, man, I can't handle that kind of commitment! I don't want to die before I can sit anywhere else!"

"No, no, I just meant that you can sit with us whenever you want, that's all."

"Oh," he said. "Okay."

And that was it. We didn't say anything more. The conversation had taken place over the course of us finishing our peeing and washing our hands, and by the time it was done, we'd had to awkwardly dry our hands (not at all like I'd pictured it happening) and walk out the door down the hall together, separating at some point to head off to our individual classrooms.

But it didn't matter how awkward it was because at the bottom line, I'd asked him to have lunch and he more or less said yes. No, he said better than yes, _he_ wanted to sit with _us_, and it was quite possibly the best thing I'd heard in my life up until that point. I was almost convinced he was just teasing me or that something was going to go horribly wrong and this wouldn't actually end up happening, until Clyde, Token, and I walked out to the lunch area together, and we all found Tweek already sitting at our lunch table, right there in the flesh, very real, right in front of me. When we got there, he told us his history class had let him out early and he had been waiting there for us. He'd asked us a thousand times if that was okay, and we all over-enthusiastically assured him that it was more than okay.

Clyde smirked at him as he dove into his lunch. "You miss your other friends yet?"

"Huh?" Tweek squeaked. "I…they're right over there. I could see them whenever."

"You think they miss you?"

Tweek glanced over his shoulder. "Well, they haven't seemed to notice I haven't been eating with them."

"Who needs them," I said, waving them off. "Not that I care, but how the hell can you possibly stand those guys?"

"Hey!"

"Seriously, dude, you must be seeing something I'm missing out, because all I see is a future sexual predator, the world's biggest tree-hugging animal-loving bitch-boy, a walking sandy vagina, and the demon-spawned tub of lard that hell itself spat back out."

"You forgot Butters, dude," Clyde added.

"Oh, right. That's something we don't have, a pet chimp. You think Kevin's open to fill that position?"

"Kevin is not a monkey!"

Tweek twitched in hesitation, as if unable to immediately argue with my comment. "They're my friends."

"But?" Clyde asked, taking note of the slight hesitation at the end of his comment.

"No buts, they're nice! …Like, Kenny! Kenny's nice."

"Yeah, well, Kenny's also a goddamn crime-fighting vigilante, that's a bit of a tough act to follow."

"He's nice besides! And so are the rest of them! Er, everyone but Cartman anyway..."

"_But_…?" Clyde pressed.

Tweek sighed. "There's just some things about me..."

"Yes?"

"That they don't…like."

"Like your twitching?" Token asked.

"Yeah-"

"And the constant spazzing?" Clyde supplied.

"Yes, but-"

"And the paranoia?" Token added.

"…yeah."

"Well, you must admit, it is really weird." Clyde said.

"And annoying." Token said.

"The hell, you guys," I mumbled.

"But, hey. Craig's pretty weird," Clyde declared.

"And Clyde's really annoying," I shot.

"So it's like you belong with us," Token said, beaming.

"What about you?" Tweek asked, addressing him.

"We have to have as least one normal guy, or else we're just like them," I said.

Tweek smiled a small smile in his seat. I've come to find that him smiling is enough to do me in, but when I'm the cause for the smiling it intensifies the power of this small gesture. I don't remember what much else happened during lunch because that alone was enough to send me into a fucking stupor. It actually made it hard to concentrate during math class later, and I got called on once or twice. Fortunately I had this class with Marsh and that idiot always leaves his notebook wide open on his goddamn desk so I was able to give it peek at it before answering confidently.

I don't need Stan to do well in math, by the way. And I don't normally care about whether the teacher knows I'm paying attention enough. I don't even care that I'm one middle finger away from another trip to the principal's office.

I just felt like being good for once.

When I'd satisfied my teacher long enough for her to turn back to the board, I glanced back down at my desk just in time to see a crumpled piece of notebook paper sail into my lap.

I mentally traced the direction it had come from, which was diagonally to the right and behind me, from just behind Stan where I knew a certain dunderhead best friend of mine sat. Clyde usually texts me in class, but he got his phone taken away in this class the last time that happened and he didn't want to risk it again with his sleek and shiny new replacement model. We had resorted to old-fashioned means of communication as of late.

I clasped the paper ball and gingerly uncrumpled it.

_yo when are your parents coming home_

One word wasn't worth risking being caught, making it fortunate that we'd come up with a series of hand signal codes for certain one-word responses. It was another one of those things we did while wasting time together. I inconspicuously held up seven fingers in front of me where I knew he could see them, indicating the seventh day of the week, meaning Saturday.

I heard him rip another piece of paper from his notebook and seconds later the thing fall onto my desk. How he was making those over here without being noticed was beyond me.

_7 pm? Tonight?_

I grabbed my pencil from the corner of the desk and scribbled next to it,

_No, Saturday you retard. If I was saying 7, I would've pointed at my wrist first. Why did we even bother making up a secret code if you're not going to remember it_

I folded it neatly into a plane and launched it over my shoulder without looking.

It returned seconds later, once again a ball, and there, under my message, in Clyde's round scribbles,

_sweet, let's chill at your place after school today _

I frowned at the paper before writing back,

_what. no. why. _

It came back a second later. This would ensue in a few more exchanges between the two of us.

_c'mon it's our last day to crash there without your dad around to redneck the place up_

_I don't want to have to clean up before my parents get home._

_we're not going to make a mess, just video games and being couch potatoes, please?_

_my house is boring, why can't we do that at your house._

_my mom's going to make me do chores when I get home, please craig! _

I didn't even bother responding at this point, shoving the note in my desk to show Clyde that I was done with him. He tried whispering to me a few times but when the teacher beat me to responding to him, he finally quit it.

I thought we were done with this when the two of us walked out of class together later and he didn't bring it up. But then just as we made it out of the building, we saw Token walking toward us and the first thing Clyde blurted was, "Craig's house, you comin'?"

"Clyde, I said _no_."

"You two don't have work today?" Token asked.

"Nope! With school, we get Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays off."

Token gave us a thumbs up then and I was about to protest when Clyde suddenly started hollering and waving next to me, and I couldn't figure out what he was doing until I looked to where he was shouting and saw Tweek across the way, walking down the sidewalk.

I couldn't stop Clyde before he broke away from us and ran over to him. The most we could do was pick up our pace and follow him, and we reached the two of them just in time for me to hear Clyde saying, "we're going to Craig's house right now to hang out, you wanna come?"

The immediate prospect of having Tweek in my home kept me from protesting immediately. My imagination went wild with ways of locking Token and Clyde out of my house, and amid all this, I just barely caught Tweek giving jerky little nods.

"You serious?" I asked incredulously—perhaps a little _too_ incredulously, I realized when Token and Clyde exchanged a snigger—and Tweek nodded again.

So we turned, away from the bus stop (which is the direction Tweek was walking in) and headed for the parking lot. Today was Friday, which meant it had been Token's turn to drive Clyde and I to school, so it was his car we looked for. It was a sleek silver expensive little thing from some foreign country and with a name I couldn't recall or pronounce, and it only had two doors which raised the stakes for whoever got to sit in the front. Simply declaring, "shot gun" wouldn't fly for Token's car; Clyde and I actually had to go at it at a run.

We both hate running, by the way, and if you recall I don't care about anything, so you can imagine how big a deal it is that I both cared _and_ was pumping those legs muscles of mine to get my hand on the door handle before Clyde.

I just don't like having to squeeze and crawl and maneuver and climb and slide and finagle and obstacle course my way into the backseat of two-door cars, I really don't.

Clyde almost beat me to the door handle, but just before his hand connected with metal, I barreled my shoulder right into him, shoving him aside violently and slamming my hand on the car in triumph.

"Hope you enjoy staring at the back of my head for your car ride this afternoon, tubby," I said, smirking at him. He was too busy whimpering to properly retaliate in his usual idiotic manner, so I got to bask in my victory for a few more peaceful seconds.

Token and Tweek walked up a little bit later. Token of course had no reason to run after us, and I'm sure Tweek probably didn't see any of that coming.

Token unlocked the car's doors, and I opened mine, pulling on the lever next to my seat and shoving it forward, gesturing for Clyde to climb in. He grumbled about it, but reluctantly complied, sucking in his gut to allow more room to crawl in. Tweek shuffled his way over to me next, peering into the car as he hesitated just outside the door.

I'd forgotten that Clyde was not the only one who had to suffer the back seat.

I sighed loudly, nudging him aside gently as I slid in behind Clyde.

"What are you doing?" Tweek asked, wringing his hands and peering at me in confusion.

I grabbed the headrest in front of me and tugged the seat back into its place. "Shut up and just sit in the damn car, okay?"

He did and without another word. I folded my arms and stared out the window as Token started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. I heard Clyde snickering beside me, and when I glanced at him in the corner of my eye, he puckered his lips at me. I used my entire hand to shove his face back into his side of the car, before staring out the window again. From my angle, I could see Tweek's reflection in the side mirror. He was staring absentmindedly out the window as well, and his eyes roamed, locking with mine in the mirror for a brief second. I stuck my tongue out and he scrunched his nose in response, so I puffed out my cheeks and he made fish lips right back. We exchanged a few more of these until I thought I had him when I made a kiss at him, but then he surprised me by kissing right back and I had to look away, forcing a scowl as I stared down at my feet, my cheeks burning.

I was out of faces and, besides, he had won fair and square.

* * *

When we got into the house, I kicked off my shoes, and the three behind me followed suit. I have little reign over what goes on here in the house outside my room, but I can take a small victory in that I was the one who made up this shoe rule. If there's one thing I hate, it's shoes dragging dirt all over the goddamn house. Token and Clyde were trained well, and I only assumed Tweek did it because he'd seen the three of us do it first.

The first thing Clyde and Token did, of course, was steal away into my kitchen down the hall. I heard them opening the fridge and various cabinets in there, and while I was distracted, Tweek had snuck away. I couldn't find him immediately when I remembered him, until I turned around and saw him wandering around the living room with his hands laced behind his back, observing everything like he was in a museum.

His eyes took in everything with such a delicate consuming hungry awe that I didn't want to disturb him. I watched him with a quiet amusement, seeing him slowly make his way from the shelves of movies surrounding the television to my mom's collection of antique plates hanging on the wall by the kitchen.

"Never seen a modern American household before, I take it?" I asked as he peered into our umbrella holder.

His head snapped up and he threw me a look like, 'Craig I'm sick of your sarcastic shit.'

"I've never been to your house before!" he said, stepping around said umbrella holder and making his way for the staircase just as Token and Clyde appeared from the kitchen, their shirts covered with crumbs and their mouths still full (or maybe just Clyde's was, Token looked as proper as he always does).

"Is that so?" I said, following him as he ascended two or three steps, staring intensely at the photos on the wall.

"You never asked me to come over when we were little!" He stopped at a particular picture and gazed at it with an extra ounce of curiosity. "How do you have black hair when your mom is a blonde and your dad is a—"

"Ginger?" Clyde supplied from behind us.

I shrugged. "I've had my theories. In grade school I assumed my real dad was some black-haired astronaut who was off in space discovering a new planet and would come back for me when he made sure it was safe enough to inhabit."

"Never heard that before," Token said, laughing.

"Middle school I guessed that my real mom was some black-haired mime who'd left my dad to go join a traveling French circus, and my dad married my _current_ mom because fuck mimes."

"I like mimes," Clyde said quietly.

"And what do you think now?" Tweek asked.

"Nowadays I'm a little less dumb so I know the _truth_ that my mom is Italian and my grandparents on her side both have dark hair. She dyes her hair."

"H-how do you know your other theories aren't true?"

"Because they're _stupid." _

"You can't just dismiss a theory just because you don't _think_ they're plausible, man, who's to say you're not the next Neil Armstrong or that you've got mime blood running through your veins?"

"Plus, Craig, your theorizing is just so _cute,_" Token added, smiling cheekily at me.

I turned to flip him off, ready to snap, "don't be gay," except Tweek grinned his crooked little half-grin and added, "I was going to say that, too," and I'd never had to hesitate mid-flip but I actually paused halfway between extending my middle finger to flush in alarm.

Whatever awkward moment that would have ensued next never got to happen though when a voice above our heads cut through our conversation, saying, "I wouldn't rule out theories, either, Craig. I've been betting my money on you being flat-out _adopted_ since I learned the word."

I had entered the house under the assumption that no one was home, but unfortunately the figure of my sister standing at the top of the stairs told me otherwise.

"I thought you were going to your friend's house after school," I said curtly, stomping up the stairs toward her. My friends followed behind me until we all reached the landing.

"I'm going in an hour." She glanced behind me before putting on her most sickeningly sweet smile. "Hi Token, hi Clyde…"

For whatever reason, my friends have a strange fondness for my sister. Probably because she worships the ground they walk on, I don't know, but unlike what _I_ would have done, which is ignore her or roll my eyes or flip her off or utter a creative combination of obscenities, they both greeted her with variations of the word hi, all the while addressing her with their favorite nickname for her. Bumblebee for Token, Bea-Bea in Clyde's case. Most people who know Bea well enough have stupid little nicknames for her. Dad calls her BB gun, mom calls her Honey Bee. I think mine are a little more creative: _bea_ver, _bea_ched whale, dung _bee_tle.

But I digress.

After her favorite people on the goddamn planet showered her with the attention that she didn't deserve, she finally found Tweek, and with a cock of an eyebrow, she curiously uttered a small, "…hi."

I sighed. "Tweek, my sister Beatrix. Bea, this is Tweek."

"You're Tweek," she said quietly.

He eyed her, twitching nervously before nodding.

She looked him up and down, eyes trailing over him. She began walking around him (much to his dismay), nodding a little bit every so often, then stopped in front of him. "You're cute. I approve." She gave me a thumbs-up, then turned back to Tweek, whispering behind a hand, "please don't break my brother's heart, he barely has one as it is."

"Why would you say that," I said, steering my friends away from her as she snickered impishly. I directed them toward the second set of stairs that led to my room, Clyde egging Tweek on in front of him while Token and I trailed behind. Once we were all up and in I promptly locked the door behind us and sighed irritably.

The beautiful thing about the room I happen to call my own is that it is, in fact, our refurbished attic, as far away from the rest of the house (and the other inhabitants in it) without leaving the house altogether. I had lived in Bea's room until she'd been born, and since our house was a two-bedroom, the only place my parents thought to stick me in was the attic. One of my uncles is a contractor, so my dad got a pretty sweet deal on the small set of stairs built on our second floor leading to the room above. They were even courteous enough to insulate the place, paint it a nice shade of light blue, put in a sizable window and, most importantly, give me a _lock _on the door.

And of course, once I got old enough to really get my hands on sprucing the place up, the thing morphed into this hall of fame for things that bring me what you humans call joy. Every inch of the walls was covered in a movie poster. There was _The Godfather_ over there at the head of my bed, _Lord of the Rings_ by my closet, _The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, The Matrix, Singin' In The Rain—_and it wasn't just exclusive to my favorites, really, whatever sort of poster I could get a hold of was up here somewhere. They'd even made their way to my ceiling; I often fell asleep gazing up the duplicated visage of Christian Bale on the posters for _American Psycho, The Dark Knight, The Prestige._

What one wouldn't notice immediately, however, was my pride and joy stowed away in the five drawers in the dresser my television sat on. Most kids hid porn or booze in their rooms, I stashed away a collection of over 350 movies.

Given that we more or less lived at each other's houses, Token and Clyde were of course used to all this, either throwing themselves onto my bed or rifling through my haphazardly alphabetically stacked pile of video games. Tweek, on the other hand, was still gazing up at everything in the same wonderment he'd used downstairs, only now his mouth was open ajar, and I don't blame him because my room is fucking interesting to look at. And I'm not just saying that because I have movie posters all over my walls, but it's very freakishly well-kept for a boy's room.

I don't know if you're aware, but I'm a mild case neat freak. Just a little bit. How easy it is for a person to believe this when I tell it to them really depends on how they view me. Considering how little I care for much else in life, you'd think a sock running around my room or a boot track on the floor wouldn't faze me. But it does. It _annoys _me, because I can see that boot track, I _know_ that sock is there, and it bugs me until I get up and do something about it. The shoes were how far I could get with the rest of the house, but my room is an immaculate sanctuary, a testimony to my devotion to cleanliness. It makes the place look boring, I know, unlived in, but I _like_ it like that. Boring, I mean. That's how I like most things, anyway.

It's conditional, though, and pretty mild. I'm not OCD or anything. If you'll recall the whiteboard I mentioned a little bit ago, I used it to hang clothes, no big deal. My desks are only vaguely organized, I've got a box of random crap under my bed, I drool on my pillow every morning and knock my clock off the stand more times than I'd like to admit—little details like that, not necessary. It's just the overall look, the things your eyes catch right away that might look out of place, and I go around cleaning them when I get a chance to (unless it's glaringly bothersome). And I don't go around imposing my habits on others, it's restricted to my room. I just like things in my space being clean, which is why I'm pretty strict about laundry every week and not tracking dirt around the house and cleaning Stripe's cage on a schedule I keep track of on a calendar. It's why I have an organized drawer of movies under my TV and a stack of organized video games next to it.

That's just how I roll.

"Your room is so _clean_," Tweek said. It was amusing for me to watch him circle the room, his eyes wide with the desire to swallow everything in one go.

"I know right? Token said, grinning from where he was perched on the bed. "He gets pretty mad when you move shit too much, be careful."

Tweek's hand immediately recoiled from where it had been reaching out to touch a book on my shelf. He turned to stare at me. "How do you—how _can_ you? It's insane!"

"Are you of all people going to start lecturing me on what is and isn't sane?"

"No! Fuck, I'm just saying—it's _different_, I like it! Just not something I'm used to."

"Hm." I tilted my head. "That's surprising, I would think you're the type of person to like things orderly."

"I _do_, I mean…" He tugged on his shirtsleeves. "It's hard for me to, though, I just can't seem to keep from making messes. My room looks nothing like this."

I wanted to ask him more about this, wanted to say something like, "you should invite us over some time," because for whatever reason I was curious about this side of him, but I watched him continue to circle my room and then (though not immediately, since he just looked so fascinated by everything) find his way to my desk by the window, upon which sat a medium sized rodent cage.

That held his glance for an extra few seconds, and he stopped right in front of it, blinking in curiosity and surprise before bending over to observe it more closely. My guinea pig was not running around the cage at the moment; he was currently located inside his ceramic rocket ship-shaped house, probably sleeping.

"This is Stripe," I said, approaching Tweek and my desk in a few strides across the room.

"Craig is like, in love with the thing," Clyde said, looking over his shoulder from where he was disorganizing my organized. "He makes out with it every night."

"_Aaand_ that's farther than you've ever gotten with a girl."

"So you admit you make out with your guinea pig."

"So you admit girls wouldn't put their lips anywhere near you"

He glared at me and I glared at him, and for a brief moment we stood our grounds, staring each other down in a locked bitter stare. Then, in the same moment, we both broke the gaze, and went about like nothing had just happened.

"So, anyway," I continued. "Like I was saying: Stripe."

Tweek stared at it. "There's nothing in here!"

I reached over at that point and, grabbing the cage by its bars, began jiggling it fiercely. Almost instantly, the head of my guinea pig popped out of the door to the rocket ship, and he darted out, making laps around the cage and wheeking furiously.

Just as I suspected, Tweek jumped and shrieked in alarm.

"Don't _do_ that, man, what if you provoke its wrath!"

"What _wrath_, it's a guinea pig."

"Don't you remember all those years ago when guinea pigs were taking over the fucking world? _La Muerte Peluda!"_

"Do I remember? Are you fucking kidding me." It had taken many years of therapy to get over this. "I am the reason they are not longer destroying civilizations, so yes, I remember it quite well. Therefore, I don't think you have to worry about this ones wrath."

Tweek didn't look like he really believed me, but he calmed down considerably, leaning forward again to stare at Stripe. Every time my pet would make a sudden movement, Tweek would also flinch or jerk slightly. It was almost like a call-and-response, like some kind of language only these two could understand, and I was beyond entertained.

"Stripe, you said?" Tweek asked. "Is this the same guinea pig you had when you were nine?"

"Sure is."

"How is it still alive?"

I shook my head. "Don't ask me, I have no fucking clue. When it comes to what these things are capable of, I just don't ask questions anymore. _Ever_."

That was understandable, or at least a satisfying enough answer, because Tweek simply nodded a little and resumed his locked gaze on my pet. I noticed he kept a constant distance between himself and the cage itself, not daring himself to get any closer, but watching Stripe now bathing himself with his paws with a muted fascination.

"Do you want to pet him?" I finally asked.

Tweek jerked his head around, staring at me like I was insane. "What! No! I don't want to!"

"He's not going to bite you, if that's what you think."

"How do you know? He knows you, he _likes_ you, of course he wouldn't bite you! But I don't know him!"

"Well, then, get yourselves acquainted." Amid Tweek's continued protest (at one point he tried grabbing at my arm and I brushed him aside gently) I reached over and undid the latch on the cage. Stripe made a curious little purr, peering up at me as I gazed down at him, before dashing crazily about the cage. I stuck my hand in there, grabbing him around the belly, and pulled him out. He squealed some more, probably sounding afraid or distressed to everyone else in the room. I knew, however, that he was delighted by the attention.

Tweek, however, subscribed to the former interpretation, and reacted accordingly when I tried to push Stripe toward him.

"Oh god, don't let it bite me!" He drew his hands away, shoving them behind his back and taking a few steps behind himself.

"I said he doesn't bite, and he doesn't, I swear. Hold him." I shoved Stripe again at Tweek, who now leapt back several inches.

Perhaps I was being unreasonable here, which Token so bluntly vocalized when he said, "leave him alone, dude, he doesn't want to."

Or, perhaps, as Clyde put it, "Tweek, it is about a hundred thousand times smaller than you, don't let it win!"

Either way, I pushed him further until Tweek didn't have any more room to run away and Stripe was now nuzzled against his chest. For all I was basically throwing my guinea pig around, judging by his vibrating and happily wheeking between my fingers, he seemed ecstatic.

Tweek made a small squeak not unlike the kind my pet usually makes, shutting his eyes as I let Stripe put his tiny paws against the fabric of his shirt. Using his said claws, Stripe kept feeling around curiously until he was standing on his back legs in the middle of my palms and attempted to crawl up Tweek's chest.

"Hold him," I commanded, and when Tweek realized he was not going to be mauled any time soon, he peeked an eye open and stared down at the thing pawing at his shirt. Slowly and timidly he stole his hands from behind his back and gingerly wrapped his fingers around Stripe's belly. I removed my hands and Tweek instantly grabbed the thing, but took care to extend his arms far away from himself.

"Come on, you can't love him like that," I said, shaking my head.

"I don't want to love him!"

"But, look, he _loves_ you."

"How do you know that!"

"Hear that sound he's making?" I leaned close to him and Tweek did too. Even Token and Clyde leaned a little closer from their respective locations around the room, listening. We all grew silent and after awhile we all heard something that sounded very much like, "_ptttp_" coming from the animal.

"That was him?" Clyde asked. "I thought that was your air conditioner."

"I don't have an air conditioner."

"What's he saying!" Tweek cried.

"He's pleased to meet you. He likes you."

"Why!"

"Why wouldn't he?"

I smiled a little at him and he simply stared back, and perhaps this could have been a nice moment between the two of us, but then Clyde (it's always Clyde) snidely demanded, "Wwat are you, the guinea pig whisperer?" and I sent a glare and a middle finger in his direction.

"I saved the entire world from guinea pigs, give me some goddamn credit."

How valid my interpretations of the noises were appeared to be irrelevant to Tweek. The last thing I said had been enough, seeing as he'd calmed down significantly. I therefore gestured for the two of us two sit down on the floor together, figuring it would be easier for him to feel comfortable that way. I had no problem, but Tweek had to slowly lower himself to the floor, all while tentatively clinging to Stripe. I think he forgot he was scared of it for a moment because his mind was preoccupied on too many simultaneous tasks, like sitting down and not dropping the animal in his hands. He held him close to his chest until he finally got his butt on the ground. Then he placed his hands down in his lap, opening it so Stripe could sit in his palms and stare at him.

They had a stare down that was kind of adorable until Tweek reached out and nuzzled the top of Stripe's head with him index finger. Stripe jerked very suddenly, as guinea pigs do, and Tweek shrieked, jerking as well. Stripe then started darting furiously and sporadically around Tweek's lap, all amid the kid making surprised noises with each movement from the creature.

"Why is it so twitch_y?"_

"That is a fantastic question," I said, grinning at him. He glared at me.

Then Stripe started jumping. _Jumping_, I said, and in a way that was almost explosive, like a freakin firecracker, and this was where Tweek had to draw the line. He backed away quickly from it, knocking it to the floor, where I calmly picked it up and sat it in my lap. It calmed down instantly.

"What the hell was that?" Clyde asked.

"It's called popcorning. It means he's excited." I absentmindedly scratched behind his ear as it stretched out on my legs. "He must really like you, Tweek. He hasn't done that with me in a long time."

He didn't look convinced, staring both at Stripe and I with obvious trepidation on his face.

"He has a funny way of showing it, but trust me. He likes you. He likes you a lot."

_His owner and him are alike in that way._

"Okay, babbelfish for rodents," Clyde spoke up again, "what else do those things say?"

"When he's lonely, he kind of makes an…_arrr_ sound." I mimicked the noise to the best of my ability. "And when he's hungry, he goes…_weee_."

"I don't think you realize how stupid you sound right now," Clyde said, grinning.

"Fuck you. Did you know Queen Elizabeth had a guinea pig?" I asked them, continuing to pet Stripe like some kind of evil dictator with a cat. "And Teddy Roosevelt had five."

"What do you _do_ with your free time, sit around looking this shit up?"

I didn't feel the need to dignify that with a response, and since Stripe had fallen asleep in my lap, I got up and put him back in his cage.

"I take it you don't have any pets, Tweek," Token said.

"I used to have a parrot…"

"Could it talk?" Clyde asked excitedly.

Tweek scratched the back of his neck, thinking about it. "He couldn't really talk much, although I did teach him a little bit of French."

"You can speak French?"

Tweek twitched nervously, before holding his hand up, his thumb and index finger held a bit away from one another. "Not that much! I understand it better."

"That's more than I can do," Clyde said. "Say something!"

"I don't really like using it around other people…"

"We're not going to judge you. Clyde barely knows how to speak English," I reassured him.

"Hey, fuck you Craig."

"Calm your tits, Dutch-boy."

"How do you know French at all, Tweek?" Token asked.

With a relenting sigh, he finally whispered, "m-ma mère est française."

I blinked, a tad stunned by how easily he'd transitioned from his English to French, how smoothly the words slipped out of his mouth, how natural the pronunciation sounded in his mousy little voice.

"Or at least," he continued, "my grandparents on her side were French, and they taught her some, and she taught me even less. I'm not fluent. I took two years in high school, and…well, like I said, I understand it better."

"What'd you teach the bird?"

He hesitated for a moment. "Ah, uh—je m'appelle Tortue," he said. "Um, bonjour. Er, je t'aime, simple things like that."

"That's fucking awesome!" Clyde cried. "Say something else!"

"Leave him alone," I muttered, shoving Clyde away by the head. "That's pretty cool, though."

"Really, though, he didn't say much!" Tweek continued. "Mostly he whistled. We would whistle together."

"You whistle, too?"

He nodded, then puckered up his lips, and the tiniest of whistles pealed out. After a moment, he turned the whistle into a rendition of the theme to "The Andy Griffith Show." Clyde thought this was almost as amazing as the French, and demanded that he keep going. Soon Token began harmonizing with him (because of course Token can whistle as well), and then finally he turned to me and said, "dude, where's my uke? I could totally play along to this."

I reached over to where it was sitting on my side table and handed it over to him before sitting back down on the bed.

"You teach yourself anything on this yet?" he asked with a smirk, strumming it idly with his fingers while tuning it with his other hand.

"So far I've got Mary Had A Little Lamb, You Are My Sunshine, and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, but that melody is the same for like five other songs so I'm going to consider that a hefty repertoire."

He laughed, and started to play along with whatever Tweek had been whistling last, but Tweek had long since stopped, his eyes fixated on the ground by my feet.

"What's that?" Tweek asked, pointing.

I glanced over. It was the little wooden boat Token had given me from Hawaii, which I must have knocked it to the floor when I grabbed the ukulele. I told Tweek all this, offering to let him hold it. He stared at it where it was clutched between my fingers, and, after a long moment, accepted it. His gaze was incredibly fixated as he turned it over in his hand and ran his thumb along the engraving.

"What does this number mean?"

"It corresponds to a highway whose name apparently means 'peace' in Hawaiian."

His fingers hesitated in their movement, and finally he pushed the boat back into my hand, standing up immediately afterward.

"Can I use your bathroom?" he asked quietly, not staring at my face.

"Sure, it's just right down the stairs. You want me to help you find it?" I was already out of my seat.

"No, I got it." He strode around quickly, seized open the door, and left.

The moment he was gone, Clyde grinned at me. "You are so cute, Craig."

"What?"

"God, hold some doors open and pull out his chairs, why don't you."

"Shut up."

"You're going to have to be honest with us about him someday, y'know. You can't keep secrets from us."

"There's nothing you need to know. _Drop it_."

Clyde snickered. "Whatever you say, loverboy."

I couldn't even bring myself to be my usually aggressive self in response to this, so instead I sighed.

We spent the remainder of the time waiting for Tweek to return booting up the Xbox and playing one of my shooters, and we got so into it that we hadn't noticed the amount of time that had passed without the kid's return. It took us through three four minutes games before we realized he hadn't come back yet.

"Maybe he fell in," Clyde offered with a shrug.

I decided to go check, since he was my guest after all. At least, that's what I had told Token and Clyde, but they both insisted that I just couldn't bear to be away from him for too long. I flipped them both off.

When I'd left my room and reached the second floor landing, I saw that the bathroom door was wide open. Tweek wasn't there. I briefly feared that he had left, just as he had done last Saturday at school. This also led me to believe that he might have robbed us in the process, but, thankfully I was able to rule that out when I saw that my sister's door was slightly open as well, with the sound of movement coming from inside.

I stepped over to the doorway, and there was Tweek, just as I had expected when I'd stubbornly ruled out the idea that he might have left.

What I didn't expect was to find him cross-legged on my sister's bed with a number of butterfly clips in his hair.

He wasn't in the calmest states of mind, either. He kept flinching and twitching and recoiling whenever my sister (who was kneeling behind him) ran her fingers through his hair or brushed at it or grabbed it or simply _touched_ it, really.

"I think it's okay now!" he protested. "Can I please go?"

"No, I'm not done yet!"

"What are you doing to him?" I asked from the doorway. I wasn't particularly mad. I mean, I had been at first since my sister is a brat and was bothering my friend, but I was then too busy being amused by the whole thing to stay angry for long.

"Ah! Craig!" Tweek cried, trying to swat at my sister's hands. "I was trying to use the bathroom, but she was coming out, and she said my hair needed doing and tugged me in here and I couldn't stop her, I had to, I didn't want her to be mad, this isn't even my house and I've been in here way too long, I didn't want you guys to think I'd _died_ or anything, but uh, ah, can you please—?" He sent looks in Bea's direction.

I grinned. "You look like you're handling yourself pretty well."

His narrowed his eyes.

"Okay, okay. Bea, leave him alone."

Sighing, she immediately released him, and when she did, Tweek scrambled to his feet, tugging clips and hair ties out of his hair and tossing them on Bea's bed before stumbling past me and through the door.

Before I turned around to follow him, Bea and I exchanged one lingering look, and I saw something curious over there in her facial expression. I figured I'd worry about it later, though, and didn't let it bother me.

"Hey, don't mind Bea too much," I said to Tweek, hoping to diffuse his embarrassment. "That's not the first time she's done that. Clyde had to go through this once. Token, too, when his hair was longer. She does it to me when I'm sleeping."

But when I turned, expecting to see him walking up to my room, I saw instead that he was headed for the downstairs staircase.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"I—I should be getting home!"

"But you haven't even been here that long."

"I know, I know. I just—I have to go. Thanks for having me over! I'm really sorry!" And before I could stop him, he'd already left.

I was a mixture of annoyed and upset about that when I headed back up the stairs and told the guys that Tweek had left. They were upset at first too, but reasoned we'd hang out more tomorrow at Token's for our zombie movie party.

"I'm picking you up tomorrow, okay?" Token said, now that we were talking about it.

I frowned. "Uh, why can't Clyde pick me up."

"Clyde is picking up Tweek," Token said firmly. "I'm picking you up."

"Why can't Clyde just pick up both of us."

"Hey, what if I want quality time with him, huh?" Clyde said.

I wasn't sure why they were both being so defensive about all this, but I had no reason to complain, so I merely shrugged and relented.

Unlike Tweek, these two bothered to stay around long enough to actually hang out with me. We played some more rounds of our shooter game, huddled around my laptop and watched stupid YouTube videos, and at some point I started doing my laundry while Token played the uke on my bed and Clyde sat on the floor and flipped through a yearbook from last year. They had stuck around for about an hour after Tweek had left, but then they finally decided to head out, too. They were getting bored and wanted to get out and do something, which I had to pass on because, well, I typically pass on going out, which explains why they didn't question me.

"I thought you wanted to hang out here, Clyde. That's why you made such a big deal after I told you my parents weren't going to be home yet."

"I forgot how boring your house can be."

"I _told_ you."

So I walked them to the door, and just as I heard the sounds of Token's car pull out of the driveway and I turned to head back up the stairs, I ran into my sister as she was heading down.

"Leaving?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Yep." She shoved into me as she made her way to the door, and I rolled my eyes, continuing on to the staircase. I had a foot on the first step and my hand on the railing when Bea suddenly added, "he likes you, you know."

I froze. "What."

"He likes you."

"Who."

"Tweek."

I slowly pivoted around where I was standing to stare at her. "How—what?"

She sighed. "When I was doing his hair. I asked him why he's bothering to hang out with you. Actually, what I said was, 'why are you being so charitable with your company, you feel sorry for him or something?'"

"Wow, thanks for not overselling me or anything."

"Hey, how else was I supposed to ask without making it obvious _why_?" She shrugged. "Also I still don't understand why anyone would want to be around you for more than a few minutes, but maybe that's just me."

I gestured for her to continue.

"And he just said, 'I like him.'"

"He likes me." I blinked. "Likes me _how_."

"I dunno, he just said he likes you. But that means he definitely doesn't hate you."

"Did he say anything else?"

"Well, I told him you like him, too."

My stomach turned in alarm. "What? Why? _Why_ would you tell him that?"

"Because you do!"

"But you don't go around telling people that!"

"It's okay, he didn't believe me."

"What do you mean?"

"Or at least I think he didn't. He didn't respond quite as I expected. Just kind of sighed."

"That it?"

"And…"

"And?"

"Well, I didn't get it, but he just kind of said, 'I wish he would remember.' Said it really faintly like I wasn't supposed to hear it, but I heard it."

I frowned. "But I do remember him."

"That's what I thought. I don't get what he meant."

"And…and that's all?"

"That's all."

I hesitated. "So the hair thing-?"

"Please, I am nine, I don't care about playing with your friends' hair." And with that, she pulled the door open and left.

I stared at the door for a few more seconds before turning around and walking up the two flights of stairs to my room. The first thing I did when I got there was put everything back in order, back into their orderly piles and flattening the comforter of my bed. I spared it an extra long glance before throwing myself back against it, lying on the cover with my head behind my hand, staring up at the ceiling.

I was trying to decipher meaning out of what Bea had said. He _likes_ me? _Likes_ me, what does that mean? I chalked it up as a completely platonic sort of like, and if we were to revert back to being school children for a second, I would differentiate _my_ "like" as a "like-like," and his simply as a "like.

Still, it was progress. He didn't hate me. That was great.

But what was I supposed to be remembering? That was annoying.

Token had left his ukelele on the cover of my bed, I saw, and I grabbed it by the neck, rolling over with the intent of setting it back down on my side table.

I had managed to return it to its spot, but there was something off about my side table that caused me to falter before I rolled back over.

Something was different about it.

I gazed at it, squinting my eyes in confusion.

Then it clicked.

The wooden boat was gone.

I frowned, then rolled over some more and peered over the side of my bed to the floor, where it had fallen when it had been knocked down earlier. When I saw it wasn't there, I sat up and glanced at the floor all around the bed, and even leaned over the side and glanced under it. The thing was nowhere to be seen.

Tweek had given it back to me.

Hadn't he?

I fell back against my bed, stared back up at the same ceiling spot, and smiled a little to myself.

* * *

Friday night I had another dream, but I seemed to be having a lot of dreams lately so I wasn't particularly surprised. What was significant about this one, however, was that I managed to remember it the next day. As typical of my sad excuse for a memory, I seldom have any recollection of a majority of my dreams when daytime rolls around, the only remnants of them usually being the emotion that accompanied me throughout the whole experience, and that alone was more annoying than helpful.

Of the few occasions when I could actually recall my dreams, it always happened to be the more _trite_ ones, such as that night's, during which I dreamt that I was in the front seat of a car. It wasn't my car—and by my car I of course mean my parents' car because I can't exactly drive—it was just some car. So I was in this mysterious car, and it was night outside, and I distinctly remembered a neon green, like Vegas lights or a liquor store sign, just passing continuously green neon outside my window contorting into forms I couldn't remember. The presence of these lights was weird because I wasn't driving down a street or anything, it was what looked like some backcountry road, with tall grass bordering either side and a sensation like the tires were bumping along what must have been rocks and uneven dirt. I was sitting in the driver's seat for whatever reason, but I guess the fact that I don't have a license was the least of my worries, as I didn't have my hands on the wheel, anyway. The car was moving just fine, though; we weren't swerving, it was like some other worldly force was navigating the vehicle. And…and I wasn't alone in the car. Sitting next to me was Tweek. Of course it was, he was a regular guest in these dreams of mine, and he was just kind of sitting there, and I was just kind of sitting there. Neither of us seemed to notice where we were, neither of us seemed to notice I didn't have my hands on the wheel, and I realized that the reason for this was because my right one was laced with Tweek's and had it sitting on my knee, and there was something oddly calming about the whole experience and then-and then I kid you not, the car took off, just rose off the ground _Grease_-style, and just began descending off into the night air.

And that was it. Well, I mean, who knows how much farther that weirdness could have gone on. I didn't get a chance to find out because my dream was sorely interrupted, which was unfortunate since the thing I liked most about Saturday mornings was that I usually take advantage of their existence by sleeping in. Obviously this was not one of those Saturday mornings.

My usual wake up position is on my stomach, with my mouth gaping open and a puddle of drool beneath my cheek, so the sudden weight that had brought itself down upon me took place on my lower back. I was startled so violently out of my slumber, jostled so haphazardly from my dream, that I began yelling incoherently at nothing really. The person—as I deduced it to be once my brain stopped reeling and my consciousness returned—laughed above me.

From my helpless position beneath this person, I wasn't able to turn over or anything so I had to awkwardly crane my neck backwards instead.

There, sitting on top of me, was my mother.

I whipped my head around to take a glance at my bedside clock and saw that it was 8 am. I used another moment to let this all soak in, because it's much harder to think quicker when you're tired and confused.

"What the hell are you doing here." I groaned finally, rubbing at my eye with the back of my hand.

She laughed again. "We just got home. I wanted to wake you up to let you know."

"Ugh, couldn't you have done this later." I mumbled, turning my head back into my pillow.

I'm not sure what else she said after that. I vaguely remember her getting off me and using one of her hands to playfully yet violently shove my head into my pillow. Then the door opened and her footsteps retreated, and then I fell back asleep. My sleep felt both like it had lasted a millennia and like it had lasted five seconds before I was suddenly jostled awake again. It was just as sudden as the last time, and considerably more violent, considering it was a slap to the back of my head.

Again I flailed and yelled out in my delirium, and was about to spurt out a colorful slur of swears, until I whirled my head around and saw that it was my father towering over my bed.

"Boy, do you know what time it is?"

I stared at him for a long moment, attempting to focus, before trailing my eyes over to my bedside clock.

11:30 AM. Still too early for my tastes to be awake.

I grunted at it. The clock, I mean, not my dad.

"You been sleepin' too long. Get the hell up. Walkway needs shovelin."

And then he left.

It was impossible for me to move right away, as my brain was still trying to figure out what had just occurred in my room a few seconds ago. But one thing I did understand that happened was that my dad had come in and told me to do something, which meant I didn't have a lot of time to sit around not doing whatever it was he wanted.

In retrospect, I suppose it could've been a dream, but it really wasn't worth risking that I was wrong. One summer, I took two minutes too long to wake up to go mow the lawn, and my dad literally dragged me out of bed by the ankles and it took all the way to the second floor landing before I was able to make him stop and let me walk the rest of the way myself.

I have learned my lesson.

Somehow, and I don't know how exactly (although I'm very impressed my body managed to pull itself together to do it in a prompt enough amount of time) I was out in the front yard seven minutes later, a shovel in my hand and a whole yard of snow I needed to rid it of. There wasn't time to dress properly, so I just zipped up my thick bomber jacket over my nightshirt and tugged the nearest pair of jeans on over my boxers. My hat kind of automatically winds up on my head without me really thinking about it, so I didn't have to worry about bed hair, although I wouldn't have really because fuck what anyone thinks of my bed hair, I am fabulous.

The family car was parked in the street, and I'm guessing my dad wanted to put it in the driveway or the garage so I started shoveling there. By the time I had finished that and made my way to the walkway to the front door, about two hours had passed.

The front yard looked a little more up to par with my father's idea of what was enough, so I figured it was a good time to stop. What I would have normally done with this chore, though, was ask my dad if I'd actually done enough, just so he wouldn't have to beat me to the punch and call me out again later to go at it again. But I didn't this time. This time I returned the shovel to the shed behind the house, then strolled back to the front, shoved my hands in my pockets, and began walking down the sidewalk.

I do this a lot, actually. Walk, I mean. Just…start walking. I don't know why exactly. Perhaps there's something to it being a calming solitary activity, or maybe it's relaxing and clears my mind, or maybe I just do it because I have nothing better to do. I don't know, but I just get these occasional urges to walk. I did it once in the middle of homework, just put my pencil down and left for a half hour. I was on the phone with Clyde another time, and then told him I had to go, and walked all the way to the movie theater, then came home. I don't know what it is about it, as I'm not this spontaneous with anything else and it's not that I get antsy or anything. I just feel like walking. This time, it had been burning sort of urge, probably prompted by having spent the last two hours staring at the sidewalk and _watching _other people walk by me while I was stomping around in our cold slushy dirty snow, so I didn't question much why I just started doing it.

I've always thought about running, too, except I hate running and I'm hardly athletic so I'm probably out of shape. I've also always wanted to walk a dog. I love the loneliness of the activity, but animals would be a different story. Animals don't talk, they just kind of hang with you. I've always wanted a dog in general, but my mom's allergic and my dad doesn't want to pay vet bills. I think their denial of a canine is the reason I'm such a mess around them; I've been denied one so long that whenever I see one all my pent up appreciation for them spills out in rarely seen smiles and, "super cute"s.

I have Stripe instead, and he's a decent substitute. I once tried buying a cat collar and sliding it around his belly, and that actually worked. But walking a guinea pig is different from a dog. They're not as fast and they go all over the place and it took me three houses before I realized I was more dragging him than walking with him.

He didn't like that. When I'd taken him home later and put him on my bed, I returned to find he'd peed on my pillow.

But I digress.

How long these walks usually last depends on the mood I'm in. Or maybe not in my mood. Maybe it's not even up to me. Maybe it's just up to my feet. Because I don't really make it a conscious effort to walk, I just do. And my feet just go wherever they feel like. Sometimes we go around the block, sometimes I just head to the end of the street and back. Sometimes we hit town before coming back, or maybe we'll walk around it a few times. A couple times I walked to Stark's Pond and sat on a bench and fed ducks for an hour. Another time I walked to the playground behind my old elementary school and just sat on the swing set for ten minutes. Once I even walked to Token's house, and that's a pretty long freakin' walk. It takes fifteen to twenty minutes to get there by car.

I made it to the end of my street and, turning onto the next street, kept walking. I turned down another couple streets and found myself at the edge of town before walking there, too. I passed city hall and a few stores down Main Street, and I just kept going until at some point I figured I'd seen enough and then I turned and made my way back home.

On my way back, I passed Harbucks. I'd passed it walking in the direction I was retreating from, too, but the only reason I took note of it the second time was because it was next door to the place I was actually looking at.

It was the coffee shop that used to belong to Tweek's parents. Last I remembered is that the Harbucks was built right next door to it, and Tweek's dad started working there instead. The store had been closed down ever since, and had been left vacant for years. I don't know why nobody bothered to set up shop in there, to fill it like an empty hermit crab shell. Kids at school used to make rumors that it was cursed or something, I don't know. That is definitely not true, but I have no other explanation.

But what struck me about it when I passed it that day was that the front door was ajar open, which meant someone was in there.

I don't know what exactly compelled me to go in there or think going in there was a good idea. It went against my better judgment. Also, I really cannot ascribe to the idea that things "just happen." Things happen, alright, but a person can prevent that shit if they just use their fucking brains. You get into trouble that way, when you just go around doing things and chalk it up to it "just happening."

But for whatever reason, I felt this intense desire to just go in there, and I could've ignored that, I really could have, but I didn't. I placed a hand on the door and push it open quietly and step inside. Before I took note of the rest of the place (which still looked as barren as ever; there's chairs and tables and a counter, but it looked so _vacant_), the first thing I was hit with was this faint yet lingering smell that was a slightly unpleasant combination of old coffee beans, firewood, a freshly cut lawn, and…cat.

The last thing confused me until I glanced down in time to see a shorthaired brown cat pad nimbly across the floor. It stared at me with curiosity before tip toeing closer, where I crouched and stuck out my hand, which the thing immediately went for, sticking his head up into my palm so that its skull fit snuggly in the groove of my cupped hand. I pet him for a moment as he maneuvered his way against my fingertips, until I heard movement and footsteps from somewhere near the counter and stood up immediately.

There, standing behind the counter, was a man, mid-forties, I reckon, pretty young, and looking surprised to see me in there. It was a very odd sort of surprise, though, as it just faintly colored his face. The rest of his expression was dominated by a placidity that looks impossible to displace. He just looked like a perpetually calm man, like he was on dope or something, and I wouldn't have been particularly surprised to know he was.

Such tranquility in one human being seemed impossible, and, when you compared him to him, it was hard to imagine that such a chill guy could be the dad to someone as frazzled as Tweek.

But I knew it was him. For as much as Tweek looked like his mom, there was no mistaking the subtle features he had in common with his dad. His ears stuck out like Tweek's. He had the same long and slender fingers. That unforgettably long nose of his (and with that short mop of curly hair, I began to rethink whether or not Tweek was actually Jewish). Most importantly of all, the man before me suddenly smiled, a crooked one that tugged on the corner of his lips, lazy looking like his entire demeanor, and that smile, that one right there, that was definitely Tweek's.

"Hello, there," he said, still smiling.

I hold up a hand. "Hi, um—"

"I haven't heard that door open in too long a time. I'm afraid we're not open for business yet, but what can I do for you, son?"

"Sorry if this is kind of a blunt question, but you're…Tweek's dad, right?"

"I sure am. Nice of you to remember me."

I blinked. "Sir?" I really only vaguely remembered him, it was just by deductive skills that I figured out who he was.

"I said, it's nice that you remember. It's nice to come back to a place where people remember you. We've been moving around so much. Tweek hates it, I know he does, but he just doesn't _understand_, does he, Craig?"

"You know my name?"

He suddenly snorted in laughter. "How could I not?" He tapped his temple. "I have a memory like an elephant." He fixed me with that smiling gaze again. "Craig Tucker, yes? Your dad's Thomas Tucker."

"Yes, sir."

He stared a little longer. "You beat my son up once."

I scratched the back of my neck. "I did. But if I recall correctly, he did a fair share of his own beating. I'm pretty sure he could even beat me up now if he wanted to."

"Indeed." His gaze lingered on me a little more than what made me feel comfortable. "I could never figure out, then, just _how_ you became such good friends after that."

"Good friends? Tweek and I?"

"That's what I said."

Why don't I remember any of this?

"You know, I don't know if he ever told you this, but you were the only thing he could talk about in the beginning, the first time we moved. Kept saying you promised him something, fretting about you forgetting. Wouldn't let it go."

Why don't I remember any of _that_?

I wanted to inquire further, but he suddenly said, "do you want some coffee?"

"No, thank you." Manners were weird. I didn't use them often, usually only on adults that I had no reason to be a defiant shit towards.

"Are you sure? It's brewed fresh, right here in the shop. That little bit of care goes a long way, gives it a taste like a crisp Autumn morning, like sitting round a campfire."

"That's okay-"

"Like coming home from a day of work and reclining on the sofa."

"No, really-"

"Like a warm load of a laundry-"

Okay, laundry metaphors here, the man was now getting to me.

"Fine, fine. One…cup. I guess."

He smiled before disappearing past a double door behind him. He reappeared a few minutes later with a mug billowing with steam.

"How do you take it?"

"Take it?"

"What would you like me to put in it?"

I never drink coffee. I'm pretty sure I don't like it. "Um, I'll take it…however Tweek does."

He frowned. "Are you sure about that?"

I nodded.

Then he handed me the cup. Without putting anything in it. I accepted it, brought the thing to my lips, and sipped.

The taste was what dying must feel like.

I didn't want to be rude and spit it out or anything, but at that point what I really wanted to do was turn around and cut out my own tongue so it would never have to coexist in the same world as black coffee. I set it down on the counter, and willed myself to remain calm. Mr. Tweak had long since gone back to cleaning up the counters.

"Sir."

He glanced up to let me know I had his attention, then returned to whatever he was doing.

"Do you…come here often?"

"To my shop?"

To this building that used to be your shop, yes. I nodded instead of saying that.

"Oh, yes. Ever since we moved back. I come here every day, although I work next door now." Where the Harbucks was.

"Harbucks gave you your job back?"

"I've always worked for them, I've just been moving around because of relocation. But my heart is always here. I come here on my breaks, before work, after work. I'm on break right now. Always cleaning up the place, repairing things. Getting ready to move back in."

"You're opening it up again?"

"Well, no, not yet. We're not ready for that yet. We still have quite a bit to do." He smiled. "Tweek hasn't told you anything, has he?"

I frowned. "Um, not that I know of."

"Good. Wouldn't want him to spoil the surprise."

He was starting to creep me out. Well, he'd actually creeped my out from the start, so I decided it was time to begin inching my way toward the door. "Look, Mr. Tweak, it's been nice to see you. I gotta go."

He nodded. "Of course. Have a nice day."

"You too."

I was almost out when he suddenly said, "do me a favor. Stay close to Tweek."

My hand was on the door handle when he said that, and I stopped to glance back at him. "Sir?"

"I don't necessarily mean proximity. I just mean—I worry about that boy. He's just so lonely."

What the hell do you say to that? I don't know. I nod and leave.

It hadn't been a lie, though; I really did have to leave. It taken the walk back for me remember that Token said he was going to get me at four o'clock, and since it was almost three, it was time to go home and at least _shower_.

Which always seemed easy. I mean, it's clothes, what much can I do with it.

But, no. I came out from my shower and pulled on a shirt from somewhere in my dresser drawer, then wandered to my bathroom where a mirror awaited me. One look and, with a cock of my head, I wandered over to my sister's room, where she was on the bed painting her toenails.

"You're a girl."

"Capital observation."

"Um, how's this…shirt."

"It's boring, just like you."

"So it's boring."

"That's what I said."

"Is it an appealing boring or off-putting?"

She glanced up from what she was doing to stare at me. "Are you asking my genuine opinion on your outfit?"

"Maybe."

"Why."

"I just can't—I've never given this shit much thought before, and I thought I ought to for a change."

"This wouldn't have anything to do with Tweek would it?"

I scoffed. "What, no. Of course not."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Okay maybe a little."

"He's not going to care what you're wearing."

"I know, but good impressions are never something to shy away from."

She sighed. "Do you at least have something nicer than just a plain old shirt?"

"Nice clothes." I thought about my closet. It was mostly shirts and jeans. I think I owned something casually button up but I'd lost it ages ago.

Then I remembered something.

"Wait here."

I ambled back to my room, rifling through the hangers in my closet until I found what I was looking for. I shoved them all on in a hurry and scurried back to Bea.

"This?"

I was wearing the clothes I normally wore to church: a button up blue dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves, black slacks…there was even a tie. May I reiterate that these are the clothes I wore to church. They showed up once a week, and I was typically out of them the moment church was over, if possible.

She turned her head to the side. "You're aiming to impress?"

"Just a little, yes."

"Hm. Ditch the tie, undo some buttons at the top, comb your damn hair. I think it might work."

"Comb my hair how."

"Like…so it looks nice! Try out of your face, slicked back, none of that scenester bullshit."

I disappeared to do just what she said, then returned.

"How do I look."

She eyed me.

"Like a homo who's got a crush on a boy but is in denial about that."

"Is there any way I could tone that down a little."

"No dress shoes, stick to your low tops."

"My what?"

"The shoes you normally wear."

"Oh, okay."

She shooed me out.

The doorbell rang-that meant it was Token. Clyde always either banged obnoxiously on the door till I answered it or attempted to make a song out the doorbell when he rang it.

I opened it and sure enough there was Token.

"Hey dude," he said, suddenly stepping into my house. I stepped back in slight surprise, not expecting him to come in. "Can I use your—"

He looked at me. I mean, _really_ looked at me.

"What are you wearing?"

I glanced at my person. "Clothes."

He paused. "You know we're just watching movies, right?"

"Yeah, I just thought I'd…y'know, look nice."

"Uh huh. This wouldn't have anything to do with Tweek, would it?"

"Dude, shut up."

"You told me you'd explain later!"

"It's not later enough yet."

Token smirked, rolling his eyes. "Whatever, can I use your bathroom before we go?"

I nodded, pointing behind me. "Yeah, you know where it is."

"Can I use the upstairs one?"

"Uh…Okay?"

He clamped me on the shoulder and quickly ascended the staircase.

When I turned to watch him leave, I noticed something odd about him. "Why are you wearing a backpack?"

"Huh? Oh, I was at the store buying snacks, I guess I forgot to take it off."

Then he kept going without another word.

In the curiously long amount of time it took him to come back down, I inspected myself in the mirror by the door. I did not look like myself, I realized, and it was frightening. I almost ran upstairs to change again but Token was already down, pushing me out the door. I barely had a chance to say bye to anyone.

"Is it later yet?" he asked, five silent minutes after we had gotten into his car.

"No."

About fifteen minutes later, our car pulled into Token's driveway, where Clyde's car was already parked. Clyde was sitting on the hood of his car while Tweek was sitting in the car. When he saw us get out of our car, Clyde jumped down and walked over to greet us.

"Hey, what took you guys so fuckin—"

Clyde took a long look at me.

"What's with…" He gestured at my person.

"What?"

"Your clothes?"

"What is the big deal about my clothes?"

"We're watching movies, not going to church."

"Yeah, I know that, I'm not dumb."

He stared at me quizzically for a second before smiling impishly, wiggling his eyebrows at me as he did. "I see what you're doing Craig."

"Be quiet. Why were you on the car hood while Tweek was inside?"

He glanced over to the car, where Tweek was still sitting, watching us.

"Well, you guys were taking too long so I wanted to get some air. He didn't think sitting on the car was very safe. What if the car starts! he says." Clyde laughed. "Weirdo. So I rolled down the window and we talked that way."

I waved. Tweek waved back.

"By the way, just because you have a lousy memory doesn't mean I do too. Changing the subject isn't going to work, bucko."

Fortunately for me, Token walked up right here and said something like, "leave him alone. Let's go get shit set up."

Even as they walked off though, Clyde turned and yelled, "this isn't over, Craig," before pointing two fingers at his own eyes and then pointing them at me.

When they'd both left, I sighed in relief, then walked around to Tweek's side of the door to let him out.

The first thing he said when he saw me was, "why are you wearing that?"

"Is everyone going to give me crap about my clothes tonight?"

"…were we supposed to dress up?"

"No, I just—"

"Did you just come from a funeral?"

"Huh? No—"

"Are you _going_ to a funeral?"

"No, Tweek, and I'm not dying or a secret agent or anything. Why is it so hard for everyone to believe that I just wanted to dress a little nicer tonight?"

"Because you wouldn't!"

"Well, gee thanks."

"It's true!"

"All grievances to my character aside, be honest with me: how do I look?"

"Ridiculous."

I sighed.

"But! I mean—besides it being incredibly inappropriate for the occasion…" He squinted his eyes and tilted his head. "You look nice."

I lit up. "Yeah?"

"Yes! It looks good on you. If you dressed like this more often, then it would be less weird and probably more," he waved his hand around, looking for the word, "attractive, I guess."

"Wow, was that a compliment?" I said. "For me? An entire compliment without some sort of backhanded insult in there? From _you?_"

"Don't act so surprised!"

"I'm _elated_, you little shit. Gimme another one."

"What! No!"

"Why not?"

"I could barely do one, let alone another!"

"Ooh, ouch."

He did his little half grin I like so much.

"Come on, I'll even help you out a bit." I leaned in closer, batting my eyelashes at him. "What about my eyes? Gorgeous, right?"

"They're okay."

"_Yes_, I will take that one, too."

"What about me! Where's my compliments?"

"Oh, that's not fair."

"Not fair?"

"I have it so much harder than you do."

He moved to sock me right there but I grabbed his fist before it could hit me and his hand opened in his surprise. I held it there, between the two of us, and chuckled.

"You are so feisty."

"You're a patronizing asshole!"

I smiled. "If you want compliments, I wouldn't know where to start. And I wouldn't know where to end. We'd be here all night."

"You could start with _my_ eyes."

"That's not even a hard one, come on now."

"My…hair?"

I glanced at it, and with my free hand, gently touched the ends at the ones sticking out on top.

"It gives you character. It suits you."

"It's crazy and messed up, is that what you think of me?"

"I think it's interesting and…cute."

"Cute."

"Yes, I know you have some kind of vendetta against that word, but that's what it is." I shut my eyes for a moment and pictured it. "It's like tousled bed hair. It makes me think of you waking up in the morning, sitting up and yawning and rubbing at your eyes while your hair sticks up like that." I open my eyes. "It's cute."

"You don't know what I look like when I wake up! For all you know, I have…crusties in my eyes! A-and horrid morning breath and dried drool all over my cheek!"

I shrugged. "Still cute."

He bit the corner of his lip in surprise at my answer.

"Most guys wouldn't necessarily use that word to talk about their other guy friends…"

"I'm not most guys." I hesitated to add, _and you're not most guy friends_, but I didn't because what I'd already said caused some crazy warmth to exchange between the contact in our skin where I was still holding his hand and Tweek wass refusing to look at me and I reached my other hand out because I wanted to grab his other hand where it was resting against his side, hold both of them, establish a symmetry between us, but the rate at which my brain created this image was faster than I could move to reenact it, because before long there was a bright light on the two of us and the sounds of cars driving up into Token's driveway.

I sighed and left go of his hand at the same moment he drew it to himself, and the headlights turned off and the cars (there's at least three of them) turn off their engines and car doors opened and many footsteps and voices were heard, and _God_ there must've been like ten of them.

I saw Jason and Jimmy and Timmy pass by us, waving and smiling at us on their way to the front door, and I just stared at them while Tweek actually responded. The next group was my favorite pack of idiots. Stan and Kyle yelled out at me, almost in unison, Cartman asked Tweek and I why we were still out here, were we making out, I flip him off, and Butters trailed by with his nervous yet ever cheerful "hey fellas" and sometimes I really wanted to sock that kid in the teeth.

And of course, they all made a comment about my clothes, and I didn't even bother explaining myself. I assumed they'd ask Token and Clyde, and hopefully those guys would come up with a decent reason. Or not, I don't care.

Then Kenny walked by. I got my usual, "hey stumpy," and a, "holy balls, who did you rob to look so nice," before he grabbed Tweek in a headlock and noogied him.

"Where have you _been_, dude?" he asked, dragging a now shrieking Tweek with him to the front door.

"Hey—!"

"Oh, sorry, Stumpy, were you guys still talking?"

"No, we were done!" Tweek protested quickly, trying to get out of the headlock. "Let go!"

Kenny did so with a laugh and Tweek goes along with him into the house, and then it was just me.

"How ya doing, Craig?"

Correction: me and the straggler Kevin.

"Lovely. Don't even bother telling me how you are, I don't care."

Kevin is so much shorter than me, at least a whole foot, which is even shorter than Tweek, that it was easy to feel bad for being rude to him when he frowned in a mixture of confusion and disappointment.

"As lovely as I can be when being cockblocked, I mean," I admitted, because I do feel bad.

He glanced at the door and back at me. "Oh." And nothing more needed to be said as we both walk into the house.

I could get used to this kid.

* * *

We'd migrated to Token's movie room a little while later, with everyone scattered in various areas of the room. The way the room worked was there was a large projector screen at the front of the room (with the projector itself hanging somewhere above our heads). Then there were about eight recliners arranged into two rows movie-theater style right in front of it. I'd always been pretty jealous of this room, but I practically lived here so it was okay.

Since there were thirteen of us, Token let the other kids who weren't normally here that often (Stan and his friends, Jimmy, Jason, Kevin, and Butters take the arms chairs) while Timmy parked himself right near the front. Token and Clyde had brought down our beanbag chairs from upstairs, so we sat in the front on those. Tweek, however, did not get the option of either, so being the unbelievable gentleman that I am, let him sit on mine.

Or I tried to let him sit on mine, anyway.

"Please, I'll be fine on the floor."

"No, it's yours! Agh, I don't want to impose!"

"You're not imposing, I told you to sit in it. You're imposing by not sitting on it and wasting my time getting you to sit on it."

"No! I don't want to! You're just being modest!"

"For Christ's sake—"

"You guys could share," Token offered from where he was nestled comfortably in his beanbag, twiddling his fingers.

Despite the, "gross!" and "gay!" uttered from the group of boys sitting behind us, my mind wandered almost immediately, conjuring up visions of the two of us doing exactly what Token suggested. At first I was just trying to figure out how exactly you could fit two people on a beanbag of that size. I imagined half our asses taking up either side, then I realized it'd probably maximize space for the both of us if one of us was sitting between the other's legs or in the other's lap or really one of us could be in the chair and the other one could be laying on the floor with his head in the other's lap.

I was just trying to see how one would arrange such a thing, alright, I was just not making an excuse to fantasize about the two of us cuddling on a goddamn beanbag chair, no matter how much the thought twisted my stomach and set fire to my cheeks. I do not cuddle, okay, I do not want to, don't you dare give me that look.

Tweek made it very clear that he did not want to share the chair when he screamed out that I would crush him, and for that I flipped him off. We settled the dispute over the chair via rock, paper, scissors, which I won by employing Clyde's ooga booga trick.

So I got the floor and Tweek got the chair, and at least one of us was happy, I think.

It took another thirty minutes for everyone to get settled and eat snacks and whatnot before we decided to start something.

"What do you guys wanna watch first?" Clyde asked, standing by the DVD cabinet.

"Let's watch a funny one," Kyle said from one of the armchairs. "That way we'll get more scared when we get to the really good stuff." Kyle usually made sense so we all nodded, although I didn't quite get his train of thought.

"Okay," Clyde said. "Like _Fido_? _Shaun_?"

"How about _Zombieland_ dude?" Stan said, standing next to him. "Never seen that one, is it good?

My ears perked up.

"I heard it sucked balls on the ratings. Just a piece of shit _Shaun of the Dead_ ripoff," Cartman added

"It's a cinematic masterpiece, you plebeians," I snapped, offended

Stab laughed nervously. "Alright, Craig no need to revert to pretentious hipster douchebag mode." I'd never heard so many insulting things directed at my person in one statement. "Let's watch it then." But that last part allowed me to let it slide.

Clyde and token exchanged a look

"Uh, does it have to be that one?" Clyde asked.

I rolled my eyes.

"What's wrong with that one?" Kyle asked.

"Um, well it's Craig's..." Token started.

They both looked at me.

"My _what_, guys? Don't leave the viewers suspense."

"Uh, it's his favorite."

"So what's the problem then?"

They looked at each other then at me, then sighed. "Okay then, but it's your funeral."

As Token went to go pop it in, Clyde turned to me. "Can you control yourself this time?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Just don't do that thing...or that other thing."

"What are these _things_, you're going to have to be a bit more specific than that."

Clyde sighed and threw himself down in his beanbag. Token sat down next to him and the movie started.

I gave them about five minutes of peace, just to get their hopes up, and then—

"Did you guys know that this movie was originally intended to be made into a television show?"

Token and Clyde groaned loudly and I flipped them off.

"Oh really?" Kyle asked with mild curiosity.

"No, don't encourage him—" Clyde tried to say, but I cut him off.

"Oh, yeah. A-and, did you know that all the Pacific Playland scenes you see at the end, those were shot first? Yeah, so when Krista and Columbus hook up at the end, they had to pretend they'd gone through all that junk in the movie together."

"Dude!"

"Oh, right, you guys haven't seen this. I'll keep these spoiler free."

"Shut up, Craig!" Cartman yelled from across the room.

I flipped him off but said nothing.

That is, until the movie started getting underway. Then I began saying the lines out loud.

No one seemed especially bothered by this at first, although I thought I could see a vein twitching on Clyde's face. When I started to say the lines before they even came out of the character's mouths, though, everyone groaned a little.

"Craig!" Stan cried, holding his head. "Cut it out, dude, we're trying to watch."

I flipped him off, but didn't say any more lines… verbally, anyway.

"I can still _hear_ your lips moving!" Kyle said.

"Did you guys know Jesse Eisenberg is actually afraid of clowns?"

"No one cares, Craig."

"Ooh, guys, this part, did you know the supermarket scene wasn't filmed in a supermarket? It was just an empty warehouse they filled with shelves and fake food. The freezer section is just pictures of—"

"Craig, shut up!"

"We warned you guys," Token said with a sigh.

"Is he always this bad?" Stan whispered.

"This is nothing," Clyde said. "You should see him when we watch Lord of the Rings."

"We always end up pausing it to let him finish, but he could spend an hour on the goddamn Shire alone," Token added.

"He even knows how to say the parts that are in Elvish."

"Why need DVD commentaries…"

"It's just easier if it's not a favorite of his."

"Can't remember birthdays or what he had for lunch that afternoon, but he can recite _entire movies_…"

"I'm like that with Star Wars," Kevin added brightly.

We all stared at him awkwardly.

"Kevin," Cartman said. "Goddammit."

The determination of this crowd was outstanding. They wanted to keep going with the rest of this movie, despite their aversion to my factoids. I don't know what they thought was going to happen, perhaps that I would eventually take the hint that they didn't care about would stop.

And that's why they're idiots.

I had something to say for just about everything, and I really was on a roll at some point. Token and Clyde had long since learned to tune me out but everyone else was still groaning and telling me to be quiet. Tweek wasn't saying anything when I glanced at him. Actually, he kind of looked like he was listening with some small level of interest in what I had to say, and that was enough for me.

About halfway through the movie, Kenny suddenly shot up out of his chair and stumbled over to me.

"Stumpy, Stumpy please, if you would be so kind, I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry."

"All the more reason to feed me."

"Token put out chips."

"The chip bowl is empty. Plus, I need real food."

"You're welcome to anything, dude," Token added.

"And get it yourself," I said. "You've been here before."

"If you don't supervise me, I might eat the entire kitchen."

I sighed, throwing a look at Token. He didn't look eager to go help Kenny himself, and I could feel the eyes of the people around me urging me to _leave_.

I'd only seen this movie about thirty times so I supposed it wouldn't matter too much if I left the room. Reluctantly heaving myself to my feet, I grabbed a grinning Kenny by the sleeve of his parka and dragged him behind me.

The minute we reached the kitchen he broke out of my grip and wrenched open the fridge. Even with his head in there, though, I was able to make out the next thing he said.

"Dude, why do you do that?"

"What."

He surfaced from the fridge with an entire bowl of macaroni salad. He tore the plastic wrap off, grabbed a fork from a drawer, and went to town on it.

"That thing with your mouth. That annoying thing."

"Oh, you'd know a lot about annoying mouths, wouldn't you."

"Ooh, Craig, I love it when you talk about my mouth."

I sighed.

"Seriously though," Kenny continued, shoving a forkful of macaroni in his mouth.

"Why else? I'm trying to educate you people, you should be thankful."

He chuckled derisively. "Whatever you say, Stumpy."

I watched him shovel more food in his mouth before asking, "and why do _you_ do _that_?"

"Hm?" His cheeks were full, so he swallowed.

"Why do you keep calling me Stumpy? It's irritating."

"Because I know it makes you mad and I find that to be extremely funny."

Typical.

"Whatever. Hurry the fuck up, would you?"

"Don't rush me, I'll get heart burn that way."

I rolled my eyes and, figuring we'd be here awhile, dragged over a bar stool next to me and sat on it.

We sat in silence for awhile. Silence except for Kenny's eating noises, but silence all the same. Kenny was the first to break it, but, of the two of us, that's expected.

"So, how's…Tweek."

"What do you mean."

"It's just…we haven't seen him around much in the past few days. He's been hanging with you guys a lot."

"You noticed?"

"Of course I did, he's my friend. Friends like being noticed when they go missing."

That obviously hit a nerve with him.

"I'm not going to lie, I would like to steal him away from you," I responded.

"That's fine."

"Hm?"

"He's not a commodity, he can hang out with whomever he wants. He might be happier with you guys."

"He's not happy with you?"

"He just doesn't seem alive with us. It's like he's just biding his time until something amazing happens."

"Well, then, he might just be barking up the wrong tree here."

"Oh, come on, Craig, you can be amazing when you want to be."

"My own brand of amazing, maybe, but that doesn't work for everyone."

"Maybe it works for him."

I said nothing, watching Kenny pause between his eating, put the fork down, and flex his fingers out in front of himself. He ran a thumb along the back of his right hand, rubbing it tenderly, before reaching his fork again.

There was a gash along the back of it that hand.

"What's that," I asked, pointing at it.

"Huh? Oh this? I was practicing back flips in my backyard and cut it on the fence."

"Back flips."

"Yeah, I'm pretty boss at them."

"Why would you need to be good at them?"

"I don't, but Mysterion does."

"You still—"

"He hasn't had much work lately, but he needs to be in top condition."

"How can you stand to do that?"

"What, be a hero? It's not easy but someone has to do it."

"Don't you ever get scared? I mean you die all the time."

"Sometimes you gotta do the things that scare you."

I didn't respond.

"That goes for you, too, man."

"Nothing scares me."

"That's what you think."

"It's what I know."

"Everyone's afraid of something."

"Not me."

He sighed.

"Let me try speaking a language you understand," Kenny tried again. "_Tangled_."

"…what."

"_Tangled_. Are you familiar with it?"

"The Disney movie?"

"Yes, have you seen it?"

"Of course I have." How dare he think I haven't seen a movie that's been nominated for an Oscar? "What about it?"

"_When will my life begin_?" he said, or more _sang_ really. I don't know if I've told you this, but Kenny has a fantastic singing voice, and this is coming from the guy that hates him. "That ring any bells?"

"It's a song from the movie."

"And?"

"_And?"_

"I'm asking you, Craig. When _will_ your life begin?"

I sighed. "You're an idiot. My life began when I was born."

"No, no, Craig, your life may have started, but you're not _living _it, so it hasn't truly begun. You're not living Craig, you're sleeping—sleeping and dreaming, maybe, but not living."

"You're not about to tell me I need a new dream or something are you?"

"No, dude, you don't get it. Okay, you've got your whole life set out for yourself, sure. Go to college. Study hard. Get a nice career living out your dream as a famous Hollywood director. That's great, ambitions are great. But you need to do some _living_ along the way, man. You're gonna miss out on a lot of things if you don't. You know there are other people and countries and adventures out in the world, right? You knew that?"

"Yes, I know."

"So," he continued, grinning. "When is your life going to begin? Let down your _hair_, princess. Get out of your protective plastic bubble wrap of a tower, and let a twitchy little thief whisk you off down a road you dared not ever trod."

I had been listening through that entire thing, but that last part caused me to freeze. "Did you say thief."

"Well, the dude in the movie is a thief, I mean. I know it's Tweek I'm talking about…look, it's not the most fantastic metaphor, bear with me here."

My face was poker face as always, but if he could see how I was really feeling about those words, he'd realize just how accurate they really were.

"Let me put it like this. You know that movie we're watching? You're like that kid."

"Columbus. His name is Columbus."

"Yes, you're like him. Just trying to survive, dude, just getting by, like what you know is all you need to know. What was that line he said? Staying away from people like they're zombies—"

"I avoided people like they were zombies even before they were zombies."

"Yes! You're like that. That's you. You need to be more like the dude he was with. The badass with the truck."

"Tallahassee."

"Yes. Yes. Enjoy the little things, man. That has always been my motto, and you've seen that movie four hundred thousand times now, so it should be yours too."

It was amazing how much more sense Kenny made when he talked to me like this.

But I would never give him that satisfaction.

"Whatever."

"Yeah, well, whatever for me, too. I'm done eating. Let's head back, shall we?" He'd finished the bowl of food, so he tossed it in the sink and the two of us returned to the other room.

When I went to go sit back down next to Tweek in my beanbag chair, we made eye contact, and he gave me a friendly toothless smile. I returned it, sitting and tugging my knees to myself instantly.

I didn't say another word for the rest of the movie, not because I had nothing else to say, not because I didn't want to disturb everyone, but because I was fixated on what Kenny had had to say.

And fixated on Tweek.

Give into my thief, Kenny said? That was easy, I'd already given up much more of myself to him than I'd like to admit I have.

The problem was being okay with it.

We finished up _Zombieland_, following it up with _Fido_, which is a seriously quality movie that you should go out and watch immediately. When we were about three-fourths of the way through our third movie and I realized I couldn't even concentrate on which one we'd picked, let alone what was going on it in, I realized that, for the first time ever, I genuinely wasn't paying much attention while a zombie movie was playing right in font of my. In fact, I had struggled to maintain my attention in the beginning, keeping it on track for maybe the first twenty or so minutes, but I constantly found myself spacing out, gazing at all areas of the room, and, worst of all, trailing down to the floor, ghosting across the carpet, landing at the pair of feet a ways away from me, crawling up those legs, that torso, soaking in every inch of his being, and settling on his face, which was, of course, much more absorbed in the screen than I was.

His fascination was somehow more interesting to me, the way he hugged his bent legs to himself, the way his fingers would tighten around his calves where they clutched when things would get too loud or intense, the way his eyes would widen slightly or his lips would part open in suspense or awe, the occasional way his hands would fly to his face and he would claw at his cheeks in alarm or threaten to throw his hands over his eyes, the squeaks and the squirming and the gasps and the stifled shrieks.

With each consecutive thing he did I found myself not only amused and _enamored_ beyond reason, I was…unsatisfied. Drawn to it, and not content with being unable to do anything more than observe like a creeper. I gingerly placed both hands flat on the carpet and with a discreet movement, picked myself up on my balanced palms and scooted the tiniest of an inch closer. When a significant amount of time had passed, I moved a little closer. I kept repeating this, getting closer and closer, and I don't know what I was planning to do once I got over there, I just knew I wanted to be _closer_ to him, and figured I would sort out the details later. And suddenly there was a little less than half an inch between us, and he still hadn't noticed how much closer I'd gotten, and I cleared my throat, but his eyes were still trained on the movie.

I kept glancing over at his hand sitting there on the carpet—I wanted it. I wanted the courage to settle mine upon it, without another word, and just coexist in a comfortable space where I could touch his hand during a zombie movie and things would be okay.

I moved and my hand hovered there in midair—when suddenly, without warning, at the same moment when a door on the television burst open and a zombie came screaming through it, in that exact instant, all light in the room (including the glow of the television) went out, draping us in complete darkness.

A good number of us shrieked in alarm—and it sounded downright ridiculous hearing an entire room of teenage boys screaming in fear at the same time. I yelled, too, not because I was scared, but because in the dark of the living room something had suddenly and violently hit me across the face, and even before I finished yelping in pain, my nose began throbbing and I grabbed it instantly.

Between the now boisterous conversation that had suddenly stirred up between the rest of the kids in the room, I heard a feverishly whispered, "oh my god, I'm sorry! what—who did I hit?" in the dark before there were suddenly hands on me again, feeling around, fingers searching for me in the dark. As a result I got poked in the eye and nudged roughly in the back of the head and there was just so much chaos going on with these _hands _just roaming all over my person, that I shot my free one out and grabbed one, holding it firmly, telling it to _stop, everything is ok, just stop._

"Guys, guys, _guys, shut up_," Token suddenly said from somewhere nearby. The room took a few seconds to quiet down but it eventually did. "The power just went out, _relax_. I'll be right back."

I saw his cell phone light up on the other side of the room and bob its way out.

Clearly none of us had considered cell phones, and I watched as one by one, boys pulling out their phones and turning them on, waving them around in the air to identify who was near them. Beside me Tweek had since grabbed his own phone, holding it above the two of us to get a feel of what exactly was the situation with the person he had socked in the face. In the blue glow of his phone's screen, I saw his face, alight with panic, his eyes scanning his surroundings quickly, his teeth clenched, and then…then his eyes fell on our linked hands, trailed up my arm, landed on my face, and he instantly released me and shrieked.

He pushed the cell phone in my face, flooding my eyes with the LCD light of the screen. I squinted and tried to look away.

"Your face! Jesus Christ, what did I do to you?"

"Tweek, Tweek, the _light_, can you _remove it please."_

"Oh my god, you're not bleeding are you? I didn't make you bleed again, did I?"

I shoved the phone out of my face with the hand that had been clutching my nose, but I glanced at it (my hand) in the glow, and saw that there was something lingering on the tips of my fingers. I rubbed my fingers together, and it was _wet_. I touched along my nose again, which felt just as wet.

"I think you gave me a bloody nose."

"Oh god!"

And suddenly the whole room became brightly lit again. I blinked, temporarily blinded by the suddenness of it. I saw everyone sprawled in various disarray around the room, glanced back at my fingers, and saw that there was in fact blood there.

"Damn dude." And that hadn't even felt like a legitimate punch.

We soon found out that the reason the lights had went out was because Clyde had went in the kitchen and plugged in the popcorn maker, the snow cone machine, the toaster, and the microwave, running them all at the same time, and it short-circuited the downstairs lights enough to blow out the fuse for the whole house.

Idiot.

I never got to figure out the aftermath of that, though, because Tweek had jerked me to my feet and was ushering me along to whatever direction, out of the room, down the hall, until finally he admitted he had no idea where he was going.

"The bathroom! I've never been here before, where is it?"

"Is that going to be our thing, hanging out in bathrooms?"

"Shut up, tell me where it is!"

"'Shut up'? 'Tell me where it is'? Which one, Tweek, I can't do both."

"Argh!"

And so I led him to the one by the kitchen, and he pushed me down to sit on the toilet before rummaging under the sink.

"Use the toilet paper! Tilt your head up until the blood stops!"

I did as I was told while he continued looking for _something_ until finally he emerged with a washcloth and screamed, "Token forgive me for ruining your nice towels!" He then soaked it under the sink, and, seeing that I was done with my nose, swooped on me, grabbing my jaw in his right hand before using his left to begin gently dabbing at my face with the damp cloth.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm _so sorry, _you scared me, I didn't mean to!"

I couldn't resist.

"Sure you didn't."

"Craig! I didn't! I would never intentionally punch you in the face!"

"Never? I seem to recall a certain playground fight in the third grade."

"That was one time!"

I smirked, but didn't deign to respond.

From my angle, I watched the anxiety flooding Tweek's face, his eyes trained on my nose as he kept lightly dabbing at it with the cloth. He was very close to my face, and I watched his lips move, quickly and slightly, and from this proximity, I could make out a few things he muttered to himself, like, "oh, God," and stuttered "fuck"s and the occasional pathetic whimper.

"You know, I could totally do this myself," I said.

He blinked, his eyes getting wide and he quickly began moving away, starting to remove his hands from my face.

I moved quickly, grabbing his right hand and placing it back against my jaw.

"But—" I said, holding that hand securely there and squeezing it gently before removing mine. "I prefer it when you do it instead."

His eyes blinked rapidly as he stared at me, unsure of how to react. I was being amazingly forward, I realized, and I think it surprised him just as it was surprising me. But I was on a roll and couldn't stop.

I leaned the side of my face deeper into the groove of his hand.

"I like it when you worry about me," I whispered, staring up at him. "And take care of me."

I heard him gulp, watched his face flush, and at this point I had no way of predicting what he was going to do next. I could feel my heart pumping in my chest, could hear it in my ears, and I was sure Tweek could hear it, too.

I felt his fingers against the skin of my jaw move, stroking me for the briefest of moments, in the gentlest of ways, before he finally said, "is that why you let me hurt you so much?"

I grinned. "Shut up, you just get way too lucky."

He laughed—and I love his laugh, it's squeaky and marvelous—and whatever the hell just happened between us seemed to melt away while he finished cleaning me up.

We emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, just in time to catch Clyde and Kevin doing some kind of weird handshake near the front door. Kevin spotted me and waved, saying, "later, Craig! Thanks for the invite!" before heading out and shutting the door behind him.

"Did everyone leave?" Tweek cried, glancing around and noticing that most of our guests were absent.

"Yeah, we figured there was no more reason at this point," Token said, shrugging. "After the power came back on no one wanted to finish the movie. Plus all the food was gone."

"Well, thanks, Clyde," I said.

"I said I was sorry!"

"No, really, _thank you_, I can't believe I invited those people here."

"Are you going to take us home, too?" Tweek asked.

Token and Clyde exchanged a look. I didn't like that.

"Well, no. We were thinking something else."

"Like?"

Clyde threw up his arms. "Surprise sleepover!"

"You're joking."

"Ah, ah, I never joke about surprises and I never joke about sleepovers."

"Uh, idiots, you didn't think to ask us first?"

"That's why it's called a _surprise_, Craig?"

"Yeah," Token added. "And Tweek probably would have said no if we'd asked."

"You don't know that!" Tweek protested.

"Wouldn't you?"

"I—" He hesitated. "Well…my stuff! I don't have my stuff!"

"That's what you think," Clyde said, before leading us over to the living room where Token's backpack and two of Clyde's duffel bags were sitting. Clyde opened one and showed it to Tweek. "I didn't know what to pick out, so I just grabbed whatever."

"You went through my closet?"

"It was a very detailed surprise."

I turned to Token. "Is that why you went upstairs? To grab my stuff?"

He grinned. "Sure did. Now you can change out of my monkey suit."

Of course they had to get one more out before the evening was over.

"And why wasn't Clyde allowed to pick me up?"

"That would've spoiled the surprise. You would've read him like a book."

"I don't see why you couldn't have told me…"

"Tweek would've been the only one surprised, that's not fair!" Clyde said.

I sighed. "Can I at least call my parents?"

"Took care of that when I got your stuff," Token said. I wasn't surprised my parents relented for Token, even on such short notice. His parents and my parents are really good friends, and do practically everything together when they can: vacations, church, barbecues. Token is like another son to my mom and dad; they kind of adore him. Clyde they don't mind but they think he's weird.

"And you asked Tweek's?" I said, addressing Clyde.

"Yup! Dude, Tweek, your parents are creepy."

"No they aren't!"

I shrugged. "Well, you guys, that was very impressive, I applaud you."

Token and Clyde did little bows before high-fiving.

"So did you have anything in mind for the rest of our evening?"

And they did. Sort of. After we got changed, we went back into the movie room and watched _Jurassic Park_, which was just plain _fun_ because we all love that movie. Except Tweek was more scared of that than zombies ("at least dinosaur have walked once before, man, _they can walk again!"_). When that was over, we ran up to Token's room and played video games. We did a shooter game, like we always do, but it ended up being a repeat of mine and Tweek's experience of the House of the Dead game back at Whistlin' Willies last Saturday. Tweek could hardly function when playing this thing, screaming and shooting everything but what he needed to. Eventually he stopped playing and gingerly sat on Token's bed, watching us.

None of us wanted him to be left out, so Clyde suggested we break out the Wii because we hardly ever use it. It's because Token mostly has Mario games for that, though I think that was Clyde's intention, because he's the only one out of the three of us that has a goddamn boner for Mario Party. Well, Tweek seemed to like it, too, but that's probably because he didn't have to shoot anyone. That lasted for a pretty long while, and, of course, I whooped everyone because I'm that much of a fucking boss.

Clyde really hates when I win because my character of choice is Peach. It's because the first time we played Mario Kart together, Clyde challenged me to be her because he thought it was the most hilarious thing that I would pick the princess character. He wasn't laughing when I smoked him. In fact, the look on his face when I did win was just so priceless that I decided to just be Peach from now until eternity in order to prove the point of my superiority time and time again.

Anyway, so I beat him, and he didn't like that, so he didn't want to play anymore. Actually, what he ended up wanting to do was go play a different sort of game, and I think Token was in on this next part of the agenda because he kind of nodded in agreement, like, "yes, I do think it's time for that."

"Never Have I Ever, Clyde? Really? What are we, ten-year-old girls?" I asked, shaking my head.

"I like this game!"

"What else do you want to do, huh? Paint each other's nails? Pillow fight? Talk about boys?"

"Way to be totally sexist, man. _And_ ageist."

"We might as well build a goddamn blanket fort while we're at it."

I was being sarcastic. _Everything_ I say is sarcasm. But this particular suggestion seemed to delight him beyond comprehension because his face just lit up immediately and he was practically bouncing.

"_Oh, my God,_ can we?" It was fruitless for him to even ask, because he then said, "Token! Bed sheets! Lots of them!" And he grabbed the entire stack he was handed and dragged everything back downstairs to the living room with him. We couldn't argue, so we all just followed him down.

It took about fifteen minutes for us to construct this thing. Clyde was very insistent on a vision he had in his head, but was too stupid to make it a reality. I tried something too, but Clyde deemed that boring, which I guess was understandable considering all I did was prop up two couch cushions and hang a single sheet over them. Tweek refused to touch anything because he was somehow convinced it would cause the entire building to collapse around us.

So that left Token, and fortunately for us he is a genius. He engineered the shit out of the blanket fort, ordering us around and doing everything just right and making use of all supplies until it was an abode of linen righteousness. I wouldn't have minded living in that thing, either; it was just so nice.

When we all crawled in there, we found that the thing was tall enough for us to sit up in, so we did, forming a four person circle, as instructed by Clyde to play his stupid game.

"You guys know the rules, right? You hold up ten fingers, a person will say something they've never done, if you've done it you put down a finger, last standing wins?"

"Yes, Clyde, we all attended the fourth grade, we've played this dumb game."

"Alright, I'll go first!" He held up his ten fingers before concentrating really hard on what to say. "Ah! Never have I ever been to Peru."

I flipped him off. With both hands.

"Craig, you only put down one finger."

"Dirty little piece of shit." I opened my hands again and put down a finger. Fortunately, Token travels a lot so he did, too.

"Your turn, Tweek!" Clyde said.

"Uhm." Tweek stuck his tongue out in thought. "Never have I ever, uh, slept before three AM?"

"Never?" Token asked as he and the rest of us put down a finger.

Tweek shook his head furiously. "Even when I was a baby. Apparently I kept my parents up until four every night."

"Damn, dude."

"Yeah, yeah, very impressive—Craig's turn!" Clyde said.

"Never have I ever…" I glanced at the three of them, my eight fingers splayed up in the air. "Slept with a stuffed toy past the age of ten."

The three of them exchanged glances. None of them moved.

I threw a look at Clyde. "I don't know if you're familiar with the rules of this game, but you put a finger down when you _have_ done something."

Clyde's face was aghast. "What? Fuck you, I don't sleep with-"

"Don't." I said quickly. "We all know about Dennis."

He uttered a nervous laugh. "D-_Dennis? _Who the fuck-"

"It's not exactly a secret, dude," Token added. "You bring him to every sleepover."

"Bring what? I don't know what you guys—"

"Stuffing him under your pillow every time we glance over at you isn't exactly inconspicuous."

"I don't—"

"Fess up, okay, you sleep with a stuffed dinosaur. I bet he's in your bag somewhere."

Clyde was silent for a moment, watching us. Then with a loud aggravated sigh, he tossed his hands up in the air and cried, "fine! I sleep with Dennis! You would, too, man, he is the perfect shape for cuddling!"

"I most certainly would not."

"Oh, come on, don't tell me you don't have some kind of security blanket-type thing you sleep with."

"Like hell."

"Well…" Token said suddenly. "As long as Clyde's being honest, I have an octopus."

We stared at him.

"An octopus, Token?" I asked him, cocking an eyebrow.

"I sleep with a stuffed blue octopus. His name's Oliver. I can go grab him." He got up and left the room.

I glanced over at Tweek. "And you?"

"I have this—" He mimed the shape of a ball. "Round duck. Its whole body is a head, it's more like a pillow."

"You're joking."

"His name is Lemuel."

I sighed, rolling my eyes. "You guys. Really."

"Seriously, man, you don't sleep with anything?"

"I sleep with myself and once in awhile some clothes."

Clyde fake-heaved. "Didn't need that visual, thank you."

"Hey, better me than you."

Token was still gone so Clyde took his turn.

"Alright," Clyde said. "Never have I ever memorized all the songs in a musical."

I put down a finger without hesitation.

"You're such a dweeb, man."

"I'm not ashamed."

"You're not very good at this game, Craig," Tweek said.

"These guys are just assholes, that's all."

"Ah, I've got one," Token finally said, crawling back into a fort now armed with an octopus. "Never have I ever been ticklish."

"You're not ticklish?" Tweek cried.

"No way!" Clyde reached forward suddenly and began grabbing Token around the sides.

"Dude, what the fuck," I said, staring at what looked like Clyde's attempts to cop a feel.

Token glanced down at Clyde as continued to poke at him.

"Wow, nothing?" Clyde asked incredulously.

"Nope."

"Wow."

I noticed Clyde hadn't put a finger down, even when he sat back down. I pointed at him.

"What?"

"Don't make me prove it."

"I'm not-"

I lurched forward suddenly, a finger poised and aiming for his ribs. I didn't even touch him and he erupted in laughter.

When it died down, he pouted. "Ugh, fine." And put down a finger.

I myself put a finger down, much to everyone's delight, and when Clyde reached over to do to me what I'd just done to him, I sent a glare his direction. "Don't touch me."

He'd seen that look before, so he sat back down.

We all looked at Tweek.

"Uhh…" he said quietly. "I don't know if it really counts as being _ticklish_…"

"Where's the spot? We'll test it out!" Clyde declared, already rounding on him.

"No, don't!" Tweek protested, even as Clyde poked at his sides and poked at his knees and poked at his stomach. Tweek wasn't reacting to any of these, though, except that he was shrieking and trying to duck away from being poked.

When he bent his head over, trying to keep Clyde from attacking the bottom of his feet, my eyes zeroed in on the exposed back of his neck.

I don't know what compelled me to do it, but something about seeing it, that sliver of skin peeking out from behind his shirt collar, forced me to reach over and touch it with the tips of my fingers.

The result was not quite what I expected.

Tweek sat up immediately, his body tensing up and his eyes wide. I saw a visible shiver coarse its way through him and the tiniest mewl of a whimper sound from his mouth.

We didn't say anything at first.

"What the fuck was that?" Clyde cried.

"Aghh, that was it…" Tweek breathed, sending a look my way. "How did you know?"

"I just…did." I admitted.

"Wait, you didn't _laugh_, what just happened?" Token demanded.

"It's not really ticklish in the way you'd normally think…" Tweek explained.

I paused. "That wasn't an…erogenous zone that I just touched, was it?"

"Ugh…" Tweek moaned.

"Oh."

"That's interesting," Token said.

and incredibly hot.

"I wonder if I have one of those," Clyde wondered.

"_You_ definitely have one," Tweek said to me.

"I do?"

"Two, actually."

"How do you know that?

"We found out about each other's on the same day. When we were kids."

"Where's Craig's?" Clyde asked eagerly.

"No. Do not say what it is."

"Come on, Tweeky!" Clyde pestered. "I'll touch yours again!"

"Don't be creepy," I said, shoving him back down as he tried to launch at Tweek. And in an attempt to further distract him, I began poking his ribs and he laughed so outrageously that he almost pissed himself. Safe to say, crisis was averted.

The game went on after that. I learned quite a few things, actually, like that Clyde had never done his own laundry in all his sixteen years of life, that Token had gone hang gliding before, that Tweek had never tasted alcohol, that we were all still virgins. The winner at the end was Tweek, by a fucking landslide. He had six fingers up by the end. The order we'd gotten out in was Token, Clyde, then myself. I was surprised to find someone who'd done even less than I had.

At that point, Token and Clyde realized that they were not anywhere near tired and were instead hungry, and left for the kitchen.

I took advantage of their absence.

"Where's mine then?" I asked Tweek.

"Your what?"

"My…tickle spot."

He looked uncomfortable. "Do you want me to…?"

…_to touch it_, I assumed.

I shrugged. "Whatever."

He glanced about first then held out his open hand. I gingerly placed mine into it. With his thumb, he coaxed open my fingers, smoothing them out. With his thumb dancing lightly across my skin, I felt no reaction and was about to ask what was up before he abruptly pressed his thumb ardently against the area of my hand where the middle finger met the palm. Before I could do anything, he began to slowly and deftly run his thumb up and down against the finger. The feel of his thumb against my skin, the hardness of his bone against my own did something crazy to me that I'd never felt before. The sensation erupted from my finger and coursed its way like a warm flood throughout my entire body. I shuddered slightly, shutting my eyes and allowing the smallest of groans to tumble out of my lips.

My noise seemed to surprise him as much as it surprised me, because in the same moment I instinctively pulled back, he released my hand, drawing his own back to himself nervously.

"W-was that me?" I breathed, eyes easing open.

He nodded shakily.

"Christ…" I chuckled. "My fucking finger?" I held it up in front of me. "Really? That's almost too obvious…" I glanced at him. "And the other one?"

He leaned forward then, taking hold of the earflap of my hat. I reflexively went to bat his hand away (because no one touches my fucking hat and lives to tell the tale) but suddenly he swooped down and his face was very close to mine and I could hear the movement of his lips and feel the heat of his breath when he shakily whispered into my ear, "this is the other one."

And then I didn't know what was going on until I felt the warm wet heat of his tongue along the—

No. No, no. That didn't really happen, no. I only imagined it did. I only _desperately wanted it to _and my imagination had swiftly threw that in there, but what really happened was that instead of his lips it was his finger that met my ear, running his index finger lightly around the outer shell and ending at my lobe. And sweet merciful heavens it felt as good as the last thing he did. I squirmed uneasily, curling my toes, clenching my teeth, my breathing becoming shallow as I gave out another little groan.

When it was all over, I stared straight at the canvas of sheets above me, willing my breathing to normal. "Fuck," I murmured. "It never feels like that when I touch my ear."

"Maybe it has to be someone else? I never feel that way when I touch the back of my neck."

"And we figured this out when we were _how old_?"

"Six." Tweek said. I stared at him in disbelief. "But it wasn't like this when we were younger! That's disgusting, no! It was more like a tickle. Now it feels…"

_really disturbingly good_.

"I always thought that was why you never liked to get close to people…" Tweek murmured.

"Yeah?"

"Even when we were kids you always kept your distance from people. You hung out with others, but there was always this unsaid understanding of proximity around you. Like a bubble, and everyone stayed away."

"Not much has changed there."

"No…so when we discovered these…tickle spots, I was six and I figured that was why. That was why you flipped people off, that was why you wore a hat with ear flaps, so no one ever got close enough to you."

I was silent. "There's better reasons to want to avoid everyone." I turned to him. "I didn't even remember those spots existed on me. And if you think about it, you're the only one who's touched them."

Tweek smiled weakly, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. "And you're the only one who's touched mine. Used to be the only one who knew of it, but not anymore."

"Sorry. We can kill them, if you want."

Tweek began freaking out at that, and I had to reassure him that I wasn't going to kill my friends, when, speaking of the devils, they returned.

By that point it was three in the morning, which, as we had all learned, was Tweek's bedtime, so the four of us climbed under our respective blankets, right there in our blanket fort. The fort wasn't big enough for the four of us to sleep in one row or sprawled all over the place, so Token and Clyde laid next to each other with their feet to us, and Tweek laid next to me with our feet to them.

It wasn't long before the other two conked out. I could hear Token's heavy breathing, as well as Clyde's deep snoring and the occasional word or two. Clyde talks in his sleep; he could actually keep an entire conversation with himself, I kid you not. I keep meaning to record it because it is both freaky and hilarious at the same time, but I always forget

Noticeably enough, I heard no difference in breathing from the body beside me.

Staring up at the blankets above me, I realized I wasn't tired either.

"Where'd you move to in fourth grade?" I asked suddenly, my voice a whisper.

Tweek didn't answer right away, and I wasn't sure if he heard me. I was about to repeat the question when he finally said, "North Park." Out of the corner of my eye I saw his arm outstretched and pointing at the ceiling like North Park was on the floor above us.

"Hey, that's not so far. You should've visited—"

"For a year. Then we went to Seattle."

"Oh, well—"

"Then Chicago. Then Texas. Then Boston."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh."

"Why'd you move so much?"

"My dad."

He didn't elaborate and I didn't want to pry. So I simply said, "oh."

After a brief silence, I tried, "was that hard?"

"Yeah. It was."

"Oh."

I didn't know what else to say after that, even as I tried to rack my brain for another question.

He beat me to it, though.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Go for it."

"Earlier you said…my hair suited me. And that it was interesting."

"And cute."

"Yes, and cute. But interesting."

"I did say that."

"Does that mean you…" He stopped. I was still staring up at the blanket above us so I couldn't read what his face was probably expressing. "You think I'm interesting?"

"You are."

I heard him rustling beside me, and I glanced over. He'd turned on his side, his arm tucked under his head, staring at me with big, curious eyes. "Interesting how?"

"I don't know. You just are."

"But what does that _mean_?"

"It means I find you interesting. You interest me. You are a thing of interest." I paused. "I would read books about you, Tweek."

A silence pervaded after that. I could hear him blink. He was clearly thinking very hard about this.

"Yeah?" he finally said.

"Yeah."

I heard him sigh, then the rustling of the bed sheets again. When I glanced at him again, I saw that he'd turned over. My eyes trailed to the skin of the back of his neck, where I longed to reach out and touch him again. Not because of the reaction it gave him, but because I was the only one who had ever touched him there before. It was…my spot on him. It was…it was claimed in my name, as the first one to set foot on it, like Lance Armstrong on the moon or Christopher Columbus in America (although I guess the Natives were first, but you know what I mean).

Uncharted territory. It was mine.

But I didn't touch it. I rolled over to my other side, and tried to forget about it. Tried to forget that Tweek was about half a foot away from me and if I rolled over in my sleep I could be even closer.

But that never happened, either.

I'm not sure at what point I drifted off to sleep, but I had woken up at some point much later. Somehow I'd forgotten I had fallen asleep at Token's house, because I was expecting the ceiling of my room when my eyes opened but I was instead met with a canvas of expensive bed sheets and four walls of cushions, causing a temporary moment of confusion on my part. It took me a second to remember, and then I registered the next important detail about the location I had woken up in: I was alone. I turned quickly one way and saw the spot next to me completely Tweekless. I sat up quickly (making sure to duck my head under the blanket) and saw that neither Token or Clyde were at my feet.

The three of them were missing.

My brain quickly flashed with images of the three of them digging through my pants and stealing my wallet, hopping in Clyde's car and riding west to the border of Mexico. Then I thought maybe they'd been kidnapped. Or killed. And I was being left for last.

I made a mental note of that last idea because it sounded like it could be a really sweet plot if developed more, then crawled out of the cave of pillows to go find them.

The living room outside was still dark, but in the distant hallway, I noticed a sliver of yellow light, so I stood up and padded toward it quietly. I followed it down the hall and let it lead me to the doorway of the kitchen. I walked gingerly toward it, peering around the corner and glancing in.

"Dude, Token, Tweek could _totally_ get him to do it," I heard Clyde saying as I did so. He was sitting on the tiled island in the middle of Token's astronomically large kitchen, addressing a shaky Tweek who was sitting at the small round breakfast table with a mug, while Token nodded as he leaned against the counter.

I drew back quickly, listening.

"M_-me?"_ Tweek squeaked. "What makes you think I could convince him?"

"Duh, he's obsessed with you," Clyde retorted.

"You could probably swindle him out of his soul," Token added before Clyde piped, "if he has one."

Tweek didn't respond right away. The next thing I heard from him was, "I don't know, man. That could take some serious work. He doesn't seem like the type to—"

"Oh, no, he doesn't," Token said quickly. "Boy is as straight edge as a ruler. Wouldn't touch a drop of liquor even if the sky was raining with the stuff. Not that I'm a heavy drinker or anything, but Craig makes me look like an alcoholic."

At the sound of my name, I listened closer.

"Probably why it was so easy to get him hammered that one time. He'd never had a drink in his life, then suddenly two beers and he's off his rocker." Clyde said suddenly with a laugh in his tone.

"He's been drunk before?" Tweek asked in a hushed voice.

"Totally! Just once though, but _man_ would I love to see it again," Clyde chuckled. "That one time is the exact reason he'll never do it again."

"What happened?"

Token and Clyde laughed to each other. I grit my teeth. I knew what was coming. I told them to never tell a goddamn soul about that night, and they'd been pretty good about it. Not a soul. Not even Stan and those assholes.

I was hoping they'd keep their promise to me. Especially in front of Tweek.

But no.

"Let's just say…some people are happy drunks, some people are angry drunks—"

"-sleepy drunks, quiet drunks, violent drunks—"

"-incoherent drunks, puking drunks, laughing drunks—"

"Craig is a singing drunk."

Of course they would.

"And not just any sort of singing. Guy's got shit for memories, but when it comes to musicals, he's got a special part of his brain set aside just for all the lyrics."

"It was after our first homecoming game freshman year. We were at Token's place and convinced him a few beers wouldn't hurt. He sang for the company a lovely rendition of snippets several song selections from _Hairspray_, _West Side Story_, _Phantom of the Opera_…"

"_Les Miserables_, _Grease, Singin' in the Rain…"_

_"_I think there was a Disney movie in there too. _Beauty and the Beast_?"

"It was _The Little Mermaid_, dude."

"Wow…"

"Yeah, right? It was beautiful. My only regret is having not captured it on tape. We told him about it and he swore to murder us if we ever told anyone else."

Tweek squeaked in alarm. "You just told me! What if he kills you?"

"Oh."

"Whoops."

"Well, you might as well know."

"We're going to need you anyway. I'm serious, with enough persuasion on your part, we can get him again. I'm thinking we need karaoke on hand this time, to broaden our song selection. I've had visions of him belting Kelly Clarkson for years now."

"And that's not creepy at all, Clyde," I said suddenly, stepping into the kitchen.

"There he is," Token said, smiling.

"How much did you hear?" Tweek cried.

"Uh, enough."

"Please don't kill them!"

"Okay, well, since you asked so nicely," I glanced around, looking for a clock. "What time is it?"

"Five-thirty," Clyde supplied.

"Why are you guys awake?"

"We're talking to Tweek."

"He's very interesting, you know."

I glanced at him at the same moment he glanced at me. "I know he is."

Later, when Clyde suddenly asked Tweek to give him a lowdown on his coffee drinking ("I _cannot_ take that stuff black, how do you do it, man?"), Token wandered over to me, and in a low voice said, "he passed, if you'd care to know."

"Passed?"

"Our test?"

Oh yes.

"Was that why we played that…?"

"That was part of it. It was mostly the entire evening."

"Ah." I paused. "You know I wouldn't care if he passed or not, right? I would still hang out with him. Make you guys hang out with him."

"We know. He passed for that reason, too." Token smiled. "He's a nice kid. I'm glad you like him, since, y'know, you don't like anyone."

I stared down at my feet.

"I do like him," I whispered. "Now's the time, Toke, and I _do_."

"Of course you do."

We all made it back to sleep at one point or another, and this time it was only I that managed to stay awake longer than the the other three. Token snored, Clyde gabbed, and Tweek, I found, twitched. It was less like his normal twitching, more like the twitching a puppy makes in its sleep. I stared at him for what was maybe longer than necessary.

I didn't have any dreams that night.

Probably because the real thing was right there.


	8. Inquisition

Four things, all occurring close in succession to one another, drew me from my sleep the following morning.

One was the waterfall-turned-puddle of drool that was collecting on my arm (that was mine). The other was the faint but distinct vibrating of a cellphone under my pillow (also mine). The third was the foot that was currently jabbed into my cheek (that was Clyde's). Lastly was this curiously delicious and _warm_ aroma wafting in from whatever direction I, in my still slightly sleepy state, could not pin.

I'm actually surprised I didn't wake up any sooner than whatever time it was, considering how light of a sleeper I am. For whatever reason, the only things I'm capable of sleeping through are natural disasters. Like, once, I slept through a thunderstorm and another time through a nearby avalanche, and I bet I could probably sleep through the end of the world.

Otherwise, I wake up pretty easily, and it's for this reason that I don't usually like having too many sleepovers, especially ones with Clyde. He not only _talks,_ but also, about an hour or so into falling asleep (depending on how tired he is), he'll start snoring, and that in and of itself may as well be considered the sounds of a natural disaster. One time I had to deal with this, I found myself lying awake on the floor of his room, staring up at the ceiling in utmost agony, until, half-crazed with a mixture of fatigue and irritation, I got up in the middle of the night and attempted to smother him with a pillow.

I had ended up sleeping in his living room that night, but even then, all the way down the stairs, I could still faintly hear him and his thunderous snores, and it was enough to keep me drifting in and out of sleep so much so that I was not a happy camper the next morning.

The fact that I had managed to survive not only the noises of Clyde but also whatever the noises the other two must have made meant I must have been sleeping…amazingly well.

Needing to take care of these newly arisen interruptions in my life, I prioritized dealing with them in this manner: first, I killed two birds with one stone by wiping my spit-soaked arms against Clyde's foot, causing him to recoil in alarm, mumbling something loud and vaguely indistinct, although I did detect something along the lines of, "that badger owes me money," before he rolled over and fell back asleep. Next, I buried my hand under the pillow to retrieve my phone where I had left it the night before and, rubbing absentmindedly at my eyes with the knuckle of my other hand, brought it close to my face, stamping on some random button and waking the thing up.

I had a text. From my mother. My mother is not an avid texter, she just barely got a cell phone last year, and she still uses so much shorthand that not even I can understand what the hell she's saying. It went from replacing words like, "you" and "your to "u" and "ur", to suddenly taking _all_ the vowels out of every other word so that decoding her messages was half the work of reading them.

This message, however, did not require extra brainpower to decipher.

It was one word. _Church, _it said, and I knew exactly what she was getting at.

I had to get home.

Or maybe I didn't, I realized, glancing at the top right of my cell phone screen where the time was. It was seven in the morning—how I had slept well for only two hours of sleep was beyond me—and church was at 11:30. Mom usually wakes up around this time so it was no wonder that _she_ was up and about, but I think she knew just as well as I did that I was already hard-pressed to wake up or move or do _anything_ that required energy when I was home, let alone twenty miles away surrounded by my nearly-equally lazy friends. It wasn't a threat, just a reminder.

Still, I did have to get home. My parents do not give a shit where I am, what I am doing, where I had been the night before, what state I am in, my health condition, _anything_, if it is Sunday and time for church, they will find me and they will make me go, or I will be in a world of pain. There was this one summer I had been out late with Token and Clyde the night before at a midnight premiere of some movie I was really excited about, and I was too exhausted to wake up the next morning. My dad did his thing: came in, dragged me out by my ankles, right into the fucking bathtub where he turned on the faucet for cold water on full blast.

I can't remember for certain, but I may have cried a little.

They used to threaten to ground me, but when they remembered I don't leave the house anyway, they moved onto possessions, and when the life of my video camera is being threatened, I am a desperate man. So, until I make my first fucking blockbuster hit and have enough money to move far away to a remote island off the coast of Florida where I never have to interact with people or church ever again, I just make it a point to appease them, at least in the meantime.

That took care of the drool, of the foot, of the cell phone, and now that I was awake enough to have processed the impending doom I was in if I did not promptly and actively respond to my mother's beckoning text, I decided to deal with the fourth annoyance, which was that strong wafting scent.

I groggily propped myself up on my elbows and glanced around me, familiarizing myself with the situation of my surroundings. Token and Clyde were still asleep, the former in the exact same position he had been in when he had fallen asleep and snoring with such faintness and stillness that it was almost melodic to me. The latter couldn't have been any more opposite, his body contorted in the most awkward and uncomfortable looking position, his mouth gaping open, his entire person shifted so radically from where it had been several hours before that he had got close enough to me to get his foot in my face in the first place. I also noticed that in his stirring he had knocked over corners of the blanket fort and parts of it had started falling apart, including right next to me, where it had completely sunken in.

For a brief and terrible second I had a slight fear that Tweek might have suffocated in his sleep. I have no _actual _fears, as I expressed to Kenny the night before, but there's something about shit happening when I'm _sleeping_ that somehow activates my busy imagination and makes me somewhat paranoid. Things like forgetting to lock the back door and someone breaking into our house at night, of poisonous insects crawling under my covers and stinging me to death, or, in this case, being suffocated by bed sheets.

They're not severe enough paranoias to ruin my life or anything, and while I certainly go to bed thinking about them, I always ultimately realize I fear them less than I love sleep. It's just that, sure, give me those things when I'm awake and I will kick their ass halfway around the planet, but my defenses are down in sleep, and it's unnerving not to be able to fight back.

So now that I was face-to-face with one of my secret concerns, I felt a bizarre and foreign stinging sensation in the pit of my stomach that I chalked up to genuine _worry_ for another person's wellbeing, and I started furiously digging under the sheets beside me to try and uncover what I expected to be the dead body of my friend.

What I ended up finding was no body at all, which was a slight relief. Also I felt incredibly stupid, because if Clyde had said to me, "Tweek might have suffocated under the sheets, save him," I probably would have smacked him.

This absence of Tweek was a new addition to my lists of curiosities that needed to be dealt with, right after deducing what that smell was from earlier, so I silently yawned an incredibly outlandish yawn and stretched out luxuriously, hearing my bones cracking with an amazingly satisfying series of pops. I also took care to kick Clyde while I was doing this, causing him to jerk and yelp out, "my pants are filled with jell-o," before I crawled out from under the fort and made my way to the bathroom, where I relieved myself.

Then, following my nose, I headed for the kitchen.

Just as I assumed I would, I found Tweek in there, sitting at Token's breakfast nook, hunched over a mug, staring contemplatively out the large bay window overlooking Token's mom's rose bushes. The way he was sitting was a little odd, with both his feet with him on the seat of the chair and his knees drawn to his chest and his arms wrapped around them, hugging them to himself. It wasn't any odder than he was most of the time, so I didn't dwell too much on it.

Upon stepping through the door frame, I was hit with an intense and all-surrounding wave of what was an incredibly _flavorful_ scent, something hazelnuty and cinnamony, I don't know, some fancy shit, and it smelled _delightful_, like a fucking aromatic hug, and I knew that was what I had been searching for.

He hadn't noticed me right away, and I didn't want to startle him like I had done more or less every other occasion I had initiated contact with him, so I cleared my throat, and he turned his head so suddenly and alertly that I was actually a tad startled myself.

"Um," I started, watching him relax and run a shaky hand through his hair when he recognized it was me, "morning."

"Good—good morning!" his voice rung out loud, sounding neither particularly bright nor fatigued; it was more of a sort of excitable neutrality. Overall, he didn't look the least bit tired. I mean, he had some serious bags under his eyes, but those seemed like they had always been there. He was just as jerky and awake as he always was, despite the hour it was and the hour I know he had fallen asleep, and I decided the fault of that must have been whatever he was drinking.

If anything, though, he looked…peaceful. He was twitching and shaking and shit, alright, but something about his face just suggested the utmost _ease_, something I hadn't seen him truly wear before. It was even more so like this a few seconds ago, when he had been staring out the window.

Taking the lack of anything even _remotely_ resembling hostility as a sort of invitation, I walked further into the kitchen, approaching him and glancing at his mug with a single raised eyebrow.

"Coffee?"

He bit the corner of his bottom lip and nodded. "Token won't mind, do you think?" He sounded genuinely concerned about this.

I shook my head. "Dude, you're welcome to anything."

"Er, um, okay good because I…I wanted some—well, no I didn't really want coffee, I'm trying not to drink coffee, I actually wanted tea, so I came in here and didn't want to _touch_ anything, y'know, misplace anything, his parents probably wouldn't like that so I just…I guess they keep the tea in the cupboards, and I didn't want to rifle through their stuff, so I settled for coffee and grabbed whatever grounds they had next to the coffeemaker and it was some extra fancy Italian shit, it tastes so _expensive_, man, and all I wanted was _black_ but…but whatever."

"It smells good."

He wiggled the mug around on the table, smiling shyly. "Do you want some?"

"Ah, no, uh, I don't do coffee."

"Count yourself lucky," he mumbled, his eyes traveling downward as his smile faltered slightly.

Just what was I supposed to say to that? He was obviously having some deep-seeded psychological issues here or _something_. I mean, it's like I just told him I didn't know what it was like not to have a parent die on me, so I cleared my throat again during the awkward silence that pervaded thereafter and moved to the cupboards near the stove.

"I will, however, eat something," I said. "You hungry?"

Tweek nodded eagerly, perking up again.

"Cereal?" I offered, opening the cupboard nearest to me and revealing two shelves of the stuff, all of varying nutritional values and with enough boxes to make the tenth aisle at work slightly jealous.

"No, that's okay! You said I could, um, help myself?" He looked a tad nervous to be asking, but I mentally commended him for going through with it.

I gestured to the rest of the kitchen. "Go for it." As he leaped to his feet and stumbled over a little too quickly, I myself reached for a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and went to go hunt down the biggest bowl I could find in one of the other cabinets. I suppose I could have also made pancakes, but pancakes are really more of a dinner food for me to make. I can barely function well enough in the morning to make poptarts, for God's sake, let alone pull out a frying pan and even _try_ to measure out the ingredients for my mother's very specific pancake batter recipe.

In the amount of time it had taken me to find a bowl large enough to sate my extremely demanding cereal desires, Tweek had rummaged through enough cupboards, the fridge, and Token's walk-in pantry to fill the counter-space of the kitchen island with an intriguing amount of food items. Also he was now wearing a purple apron that I assumed belongs to Token's dad.

I had long since managed to pour myself a bowl of cereal and was then leaning against the counter near the kitchen sink, feeding myself while I watched Tweek get to work. He already had a small saucepan of water boiling on the stove, right next to a frying pan of oil that was also heating. There were also two slices of bread sitting in the toaster, as well as a small honeydew melon and a Granny Smith apple hanging out right there on the counter. Tweek then commenced filling the saucepan with a very exact cup of oats and cracking two eggs into his frying pan, then began carving away at the melon.

I found myself so consumed with my fascination that I was slightly startled when he paused mid-slice to turn to me and ask, "do you think Token and Clyde will want to eat?"

I blinked. "Um, no, uh, Token has his own breakfast routine, Clyde is happy with frozen tater tots. I doubt either of them will be awake any time soon, anyway."

He nodded very seriously, but said, "maybe I'll make enough for one other person. Just in case," then turned back to what he was doing. He sliced the melon in half, then pulled out this baby ice-cream scooper from out of _nowhere_—he explained it was a melon-baller when I inquired—then began turning the insides of the melon into tiny balls, which he then used to fill the now hollowed-out melon half.

About fifteen minutes later, Tweek sat down to the table with a plate of two perfectly golden slices of toast, both slathered in a reasonable amount of margarine and what he informed me was mango jelly (I had no idea such a thing existed, let alone in Token's kitchen); two immaculately round and white fried eggs, flavored with some insane mix of seasonings I hadn't bothered to follow him attack them with; a bowl of oatmeal, into which I saw him add tiny apple cubes he had cut up himself and a dash of cinnamon; his makeshift bowl of honey dew balls; and, finally, because he had managed to find the tea in all his searching, a new mug of what he told me was vanilla Ceylon.

And by the time this mess was over, I was still nursing my bowl of hormone-laced cow's milk and processed squares of sugar.

"Jesus Christ, Tweek," I breathed.

He blinked up at me, looking somewhat alarmed by my reaction. "What?"

"I mean, I thought _I_ was cool for knowing how to make pancakes, but—holy shit, dude."

"Oh." He stared down at his creations in front of him. "I like breakfast."

"No shit, you do." I drew closer, inspecting everything, as if it wasn't real, even though I'd just witnessed him create it all a few minutes ago. "Is it always like this?"

"These exact things? Not always, sometimes I make omelets or huevos rancheros or, um, bacon? And waffles and crepes and bagels…it just depends on what's on hand, I guess."

I both felt my jaw drop slightly and my mouth begin to salivate. "How often, exactly?"

"Um, most mornings!"

"_Most_ mornings? Where the fuck do you find the goddamn time?"

"I, uh, don't really sleep much."

Which reminded me. "How much did you sleep last night, anyway?"

"A-an hour?"

"An hour." And he had fallen asleep before I had. So probably just as I had finally started dozing off, he was already waking up. "What, pray tell, were you doing up at the buttcrack of dawn?"

"Er, I made it through a cup and half of that coffee, and I read, um, I read some of their newspaper!" He nodded over to the space beside him on the bench of the nook where there was a daily newspaper opened up to the weather page. "It's going to rain in a couple days."

"I just…wow, is all I can say to that, really."

He didn't respond, instead staring away and gesturing to the food in front of him. "Um, you're welcome to have some. This is way too much for me."

I wondered briefly why he made so much in the first place, but didn't let it deter me from taking him up on his offer and sitting down across from him. Putting down my still unfinished bowl of cereal, I grabbed one of the pieces of toast and took a generous bite out of it.

I'd never had mango jelly before. Hell, I don't even think I've ever had a mango before, but in that moment, I was so overcome with this wondrous flavor invading my mouth that I decided I needed to build my home in a mango tree and never leave.

"How is it?" he asked nervously.

"Motherfucking _orgasm_ in my mouth."

Tweek laughed at that, and the way this kid laughs, it's not a boisterous thing, it's like a nervous, reserved cross between a giggle and a chuckle, and I'm really quite fond of it. It's some kind of small victory on my part to be capable of making him emit such a noise.

"Can I…?" I continued, now holding my spoon and reaching for one of his eggs. He nodded and pushed the plate closer toward me, where I scooped an entire egg off and quickly shoved the entire thing into my mouth.

I don't know what I was eating, but it wasn't any fucking egg I've ever had before. Or maybe that's because my mom's idea of eggs is always scrambled with nothing but salt and pepper.

Tweek was watching me expectantly, waiting for a verdict.

"Tweek, how in God's name did you learn how to prepare food like this?"

"Like what?"

"_Perfectly_."

I watched a faint trace of red color his cheeks, and smiled to myself.

"My, uh, my mom doesn't work, and summers are long when you're a kid without—um, well, summers are just _long_, so she…taught me what she could."

"So you can make _anything_."

"No, just breakfast food. I usually sleep at crazy messed up hours during the summer, but it's really important for me to eat breakfast food when I wake up, so she thought it more appropriate to teach me those kinds of dishes."

"Huh." I slipped the spoon back into my cereal bowl, swirling it around contemplatively as I studied Tweek across the table. He averted his eyes nervously.

"Did, um," he said. "Was there anything in that cereal box?"

"Cereal."

"_Besides_ cereal, smartass."

"What, like—" I stood up and went for the cabinet, pulling out the box, opening the lid, peering inside, reaching my hand in, and finally pulling out— "this?"

It was a plastic toy, a little Spongebob figurine.

Seeing it caused Tweek to light up. "Yes! That!"

I glanced at it in my hand before holding it out at him. "You want it?"

"Do you think Token will mind?"

"Token could buy a dump truck full of these. Hell, he could buy the sweatshop in Asia where it was probably made." I returned the cereal box, then sat back down at the table, pushing the toy toward him. "Why you would want it, though, is what I really want to know."

"I, um, collect them."

"Spongebob toys?"

"No, the toys that—that you get out of the cereal boxes!"

"Oh yeah?" I thought back to the countless pieces of crap I had to send in box tops for as a kid. The amount of cereal I had to consume for all that junk was insane, but it was worth it. At the time, anyway. I told Tweek about this, but he shook his head.

"No, not those, I mean the ones that already come in the box."

"You collect them."

"Yes, I don't even care one way or another for the cereal itself, just the things inside."

"Why?"

At that, he moved suddenly, the tip of his right thumb sliding past his lips to where he bit at it with his teeth. He watched me and as I stared back, I saw a level of concentration in his eyes, like he was studying me, reading me, trying to make sense out of my question.

Finally, with a curious tone of voice, he said, very slowly, "no reason."

"No reason at all."

He eyes flicked to the bay window again. "There is a reason." He glanced back at me. "It's therapeutic."

"It's therapeutic to collect things."

"Yes."

I leaned forward. "And cooking breakfast, is that therapeutic, too?"

He nodded.

I hummed contemplatively. "What else?"

It took him a suspiciously long amount of time to respond, and when he did, he was frowning. "You're asking a lot of questions again!"

"It's one question, but sue me if I'm curious."

"Well—! Can I at least ask _you_ some questions?"

"Are you deliberately trying to avoid the one I just asked."

"I'm just saying, man, it's only fair!"

I rolled my eyes. "How about this, then: I'll answer one of your questions in exchange for you answering one of mine."

"You've already asked me so many questions! I should get to ask, like, two for every one of yours!"

"Fine, two."

"No, wait, make it three!"

"What? No."

"That's my offer, take it or leave it!"

"I don't do negotiations."

And yet—

I got some kind of weird thrill out of him seizing control away from me, out of him being pushy and demanding, and worst of all, being completely aware that he could and I would let him. Perhaps not _why_ I would let him, but aware of it all the same. Plus, with his arms crossed defiantly like that and the bridge of his nose all scrunched up, how could I say no?

I sighed. "Okay, whatever, you can ask me three questions. I don't have anything to hide."

A noise that sounded akin to a mixture of delight and triumph escaped him, and I instantly felt no guilt in accepting his deal.

"So. What's your first question."

"Wait, don't _pressure_ me, this is really important!" He stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth, glancing out the window in thought

A whole half a minute passed after this, with him sitting there with his tongue like that and his gaze intense as he stared thoughtfully out the bay window. I know it was a half a minute exactly because I sat by patiently waiting for him to make up his mind, and in the silence I counted exactly thirty ticks from the clock in Token's kitchen.

Then, without warning, Tweek's head sharply turned around to face me and he loudly declared, "okay!", successfully scaring the shit out of me in the process.

While I allowed my heart rate to return to normal, I raised my eyebrow at him to let him know I was listening.

"How," he began, very seriously and with his eyes narrowed, "do you feel about ugly Christmas sweaters?"

"…what."

"You heard me."

"Um." I'm sure it goes without saying that of all the things he could have asked me, this was not something I would immediately expect to be among them. "I don't know. They're ugly?"

"But how do you _feel_ about them?"

"I don't feel _anything_ about them."

"Hm." He said this like a scientist who had made an interesting observation of one of his lab experiments. "Would you ever wear one?"

"Is that your second question?"

"It's a sub-question off my first question, so no."

There had to be something deeper going on here, so I decided to play along. "Define ugly."

"There's, like, a big deer head on the front and it says 'Happy X-mas,' and there's holly all along the sleeves and collar."

I attempted to picture myself in something like this, just to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I already knew the answer. "No."

"What if it has your name on the front in alternate red and green font and the back has a picture of the kind of clichéd winter wonderland outdoor scene you might find on a discount pack of Christmas cards?"

"Definitely no."

"What if it lit up and came with its own battery pack?"

"That might be a little more tempting, but still no."

"What if I made it for you and gave it to you as a present?"

I opened my mouth to speak, and then, upon registering what he'd just said, I shut it. Of course, now I needed to imagine him sitting at his home (a home I had never seen before and thus had to make up in my head), perhaps on the floor of his room (he's got a carpeted floor in my imagination, with a large stain near his bed from where he spilled a can of Coke one hot summer afternoon), surrounded by yards of different colored yarn, and there's crochet needles between his fingers. He's knitting with a look of uninhibited determination sewn (no pun intended) on his face, and there's, like, a sewing needle clenched between his teeth, and it's also, like, the 16th of December or something because he wants to get this sweater done with enough time for me to try it on and make sure it fits or if he needs to make alterations, because he wants me to wear it to Clyde's _Christmas_ _party_ that he has every year, and this is the first year Tweek is going to be my date for this event and he wanted to make the occasion special by knitting this sweater in the first place, and that's all he can think about, _'I need to make this for Craig, I want him to wear it,_' and, hell, it might as well be a surprise for me too, while we're at it—

"Well, I mean, in that case, why not." What I had really wanted to say was, 'yes, God, yes, you adorable thing, you can dress me in what the fuck ever you want, just as long as you help me put it on and then peel it off me when the night is done,' and it took a surprisingly enough amount of restraint to keep myself from saying that _and_ maintain my poker face.

Tweek's face lit up. "Really?"

"Does that mean you know how to knit sweaters."

"Is that your one question?"

"What? Fuck no."

Instead of answering me, then, he mimed zipping up his lips, locking them, and tossing away the invisible key, smiling with faux innocence when I scowled in return.

"Okay, what's next."

"What's your romantic history like?"

"Really? You're going to go from ugly sweaters to something that personal?"

"Yes."

I sighed heavily. "There is no history."

"Between the four grade and your junior year of high school, nothing?"

"Oh, listen to you, all high and mighty. Let me guess, you've had chicks lined up outside your door by the dozens?"

"That's not what I mean, I—" He abruptly shut his lips, realizing, I suppose, that he was going to reveal more he bargained for.

"If you want to get technical, I had a crush on Wendy in fifth grade."

His eyes opened wide. "_Testaburger_?"

"Yes, why do you have to say it like that?"

"She's scary, man!"

I chuckled. "Couldn't have said it any better myself."

"But why, though? Why Wendy?" He looked so genuinely curious, so I decided to appease him.

"I don't know, really. I mean, I was eleven. It can't have been an especially profound reason. I think I just liked her because she was, y'know, more interesting than the other girls in our class. To me, anyway."

"Interesting how?"

"Not all about stickers and Lisa Frank dolphins and wanting to grow up faster just so she could put on makeup and wear high heels, I guess. She stood out. Anyway, that was just fifth grade, I don't give two shits about her anymore."

"I didn't know you liked interesting."

"Just interesting people. And my brand of interesting is a little weird."

I watched him chew on the inside of his cheek a bit. "Anyone else?"

"Uh, I don't know if this counts, but Red's been hot for me since, like, seventh grade."

"_Rebecca_?"

"Yep."

"And then?"

"Well, don't get me wrong. She's cute and fun and kind of a badass chick, but, I don't know, she's just never been…interesting. Like that. To me."

"Doesn't she know how to hack computers?"

"Ooh, yeah, there was this whole fiasco with that and all our grades last year. That was pretty cool."

"I heard she has a pet python, too!"

"Yep, his name is, uh, William Snakespeare. She also got turntables for her fifteenth birthday, and she's pretty good with them. Token's always hiring her to spin at his parties, but you know he's got ulterior motives there. She could DJ professionally, though, or that's her goal to get her through college, last I heard."

"How is that not interesting to you!" he shrieked, sounding appalled.

"Like I said, my brand of interesting is a little weird."

He made a dissatisfied noise. "And that's it, those are all your brushes with love?"

"No, those were all my brushes with anything that might even somewhat resemble something as slightly less than annoyance toward other people. Love, I don't know what the hell that is."

"You've never…had someone that filled you with unbridled _delight_ just to see them?"

"Nope." Lie.

"Never had a person where…just—just _thinking_ of them made you smile for no stupid reason?"

"Uh-uh." Lie.

"Never had your stomach feel like it was…filled with…metaphorical butterflies?"

"Never." That was actually true, considering I'd bypassed the butterflies and went straight for the unicycle-riding circus bears.

"So you've never been kissed?"

"I've never been kissed."

"Never…held hands?"

"I've never held someone's hand."

"What about a hug, even?"

"I try to avoid hugs."

With each consecutive question, he'd risen higher and higher out of his seat, seemingly in disbelief that all of these things were true. And with my last statement, he seemed so overwhelmed with this information I had just fed him that he fell back against the chair, deflated.

"You looked so shocked."

"I just thought—you! Of all people!"

Just what the hell was that supposed to mean? I had no idea what his perception of me was, but clearly it was way off.

"It's okay, seriously, I don't care. I really don't. That shit means nothing to me."

"You don't want to fall in love with someone?"

"That's not what I mean."

"Then what _do_ you mean?"

I sighed. "Not that I believe in fate or destiny or any of that bullshit, but let's just say I'm not above having my mind changed. Plus, it's just not worth it to waste what little fuck I give on dead-ends like Wendy Testaburger. If I did that, there wouldn't be enough fucks leftover for me to spoil the _right_ person, you get what I'm saying?"

I'd never said anything like that to anyone before, and it definitely showed. I felt awkward, and I could tell just by looking at Tweek that he felt awkward, too. Or at least I assumed he did, considering he hadn't said a word in response and was staring down at his bowl of oatmeal.

Needing to break the silence, I quickly said, "your third question? Even though I've very generously given you about forty sub-questions."

Tweek glanced up. "A place you'd like to go."

"I don't like going places."

"Oh, please."

"It's true."

"Seriously? There isn't_ some_ place you'd dream of going?"

"Anywhere away from other people."

"Typical," he scoffed.

"Why do I have to travel? I have everything I could ever want right here."

"You're not even the least bit curious?"

"I guess seeing other places might but cool, but, meh, I could do without it."

"Would you flat out _refuse_ a free vacation to some foreign country?"

"If I had to go somewhere, the whole trip needs to be a tightly organized and well-planned, no getting lost, no spontaneity, no confusion or getting in trouble with the local law enforcement or endangering my life or anything."

"Well, that sounds marvelously Craigish of you, I suppose."

"What about you?"

Tweek cocked his right eyebrow. "Is that your question for me?"

I took a moment to think about it. I had kind of wanted to ask _him_ about _his_ love life, as some sort of payback for him exposing me like he had. There was also the first question I had asked him long ago that had sparked this whole question negotiation in the first place. But this opening had already presented itself, and I figured there'd more chances for those other things, so I rolled with it. I nodded.

"Greenland." The immediacy of his response had me taken aback.

"Greenland?"

He nodded vigorously.

Were I the traveling type, this wouldn't have been my first choice for a vacation destination, and I doubt it would be that of many others, either. I sat up attentively, leaning forward and balancing my chin in the palm of my right hand.

"Tell me about Greenland," I said, smiling faintly.

"Tell you…? Tell you what?"

"Anything, really, I know jackshit about Greenland."

He bit his lip before speaking.

"It's incredibly barren."

"Oh?"

"Mostly covered in ice."

"Is that so."

"Inhabitable, you could say. Makes for kind of a gloomy place."

"For a country with the word 'green,' in the name, that sounds like false-advertising."

"But!"

"But…"

"But there's villages! All around the edges. I mean, the total population of the entire country is around fifty thousand, it probably has the least population density of anywhere, but there's these villages! And they've got these…these colored houses—can you imagine? Just these spots of colored homes dotting along the cold and unfeeling background that is the ice-coated landscapes of Greenland?"

Tweek's voice had been rising in both volume the more he spoke, his words tumbling out his mouth like they were pushing their way out with a fevered excitement attributed to impatient children in a hurry to run out of the classroom for lunch.

"Villages, you say."

"Yes, oh God, just these _villages_, it's so secluded and wonderful and…and they speak _Greenlandic_, Craig. Their own language, man, no one in the fucking—" his hands shot into the air, "—_world_ speaks it besides them!"

"Cold and gray and sparsely populated, huh? Sounds like South Park."

"No, _no_, it's nothing like South Park, it's so…" His eyes glanced distantly out the bay window again. "So constant. So solitary and it's far away and it's _different. _It's terrible and beautiful, y'know? Terrible in its beauty, beautiful in its terror. It's just…it's lovely."

"And you like that, then?"

He blinked once, almost in surprise, gazing back at me like he'd just remembered we were having this conversation. It took him a moment to a respond, but when he did, he quietly said, "I don't know what I like." After a moment's pause, he added, "there are narwhals in the Greenlandic waters."

I cocked an eyebrow at him. "Excuse me."

"_Narwhals_. Those whales with the horns on their heads."

"I know what a narwhal is."

"Well, have you ever _seen_ one?"

"Uh, yeah, totally, because there's just one on every street corner."

"Right," he continued, ignoring my sarcasm, "you're not going to find one of those at the goddamn aquarium. You gotta go right to the source, man. You know what kind of noises those things make? They sound like fucking _velociraptors_, it's amazing!"

"You really want to go to this place, don't you?"

He stared at me in slight alarm. "What makes you say that?"

"Why else would you know all this random information about its topography and local wildlife?"

"I, uh, I mean, I read a lot of books, spend a lot of time on the Internet."

"So why don't you go there one day?"

"Mmm, uh, that's a big—it's a fascinating place but, traveling, um, I don't know…"

"Just last night you told me you've lived in about four other states. I'd think you'd be used to traveling."

"But this is so much farther, and I don't think I could ever…by _myself_…"

"It doesn't have to be by yourself, dude."

"Oh, God, I can't bring my _parents_ man, fuck _no_, I don't want to travel anymore fucking places with those two!"

"I don't mean your parents, I mean, I don't know, _friends_?"

He stared at me with huge eyes. "Who would want to go with me to Greenland? Oh, God, no, fuck, _no_, that's too much pressure man, it's cool, I'm perfectly content where I'm at, it's fine."

This kid was hopeless. I shrugged, the action betraying my actual feelings. It surprised me to find myself interested in what he had to say, desirous of more words, more information. Even for a dude I supposedly had more than platonic inclinations towards, this was a dubious level of curiosity on my part.

The chance to inquire further had left rather quickly, though, when, startling us both to attention, a rather vocal yawn sounded from by the kitchen doorway. When we both looked over, we found Token hunched over and in the middle of a second yawn, decked out in his matching striped pajamas and his hair just slightly askew.

"What's going on in here?" Token mumbled through the tail end of his yawn.

"Breakfast," I replied.

"Is that what I smelled?"

"I made a lot of oatmeal, there's still some on the stove! I hope that was okay."

Token smiled and thanked Tweek, assuring him that it was more than okay, and made his way in that direction.

"You're up early," I said offhandedly as I rose to place my cereal bowl in the sink.

"Nah, it's only 8:30-ish. I'm always up at this time, I can't help it. Plus Clyde smacked me in the face, so I couldn't get back to sleep."

I froze. "Did you say 8:30?"

He had begun to respond in the affirmative, but it was a _rhetorical_ question and I was already stomping quickly out of the kitchen and back in the direction of the living room. The blanket fort had apparently been dismantled by Token, and Clyde was there out in the open, just as we'd left him. I strode over, kneeling next to him and shoving at him harshly with my hands.

"Wake _up_, you lazy piece of shit," I said. When he barely flinched in response, I stole the pillow out from under his head (which fell to the floor in a loud thud) and began assaulting him.

"God, yes, _yes, _I'm awake, what do you want!" Clyde shrieked, shielding his face and curling into a defensive fetal position to protect himself from my attack.

I let the hand holding the pillow rest at my side. "I need you to drive me home."

Clyde rubbed at his eyes, yawning loudly and glancing at his watch. "It's like _eight-thirty_."

"I know. That's why I need to go now."

"What?"

"My parents will _kill me_."

He yawned again and stretched, peering at me blearily. "I'm way too groggy, dude."

"Fine, give me your keys. I'll drive."

"You can't _drive_, dude."

"I would rather risk killing myself driving down the road than face my parents' wrath."

"Ugh, God, no, okay, I'll drive, just let me pack my shit."

I knew that would work. Clyde was wired with this thing called guilt, and also he had emotional attachments to his car and he probably and wisely didn't doubt that I would go through with what I had just said.

It took the two of us about three minutes to pack up our junk, probably because I was in a rush and pressuring Clyde to follow suit. With our duffel bags in tow, we both sped past the kitchen, heading for the front door.

"Where are you going?" Token called, glancing out the doorway. Tweek was peering behind him as well.

"No time to talk, gotta get home," I said.

"You're just going to leave me here?" Tweek cried.

I was already halfway out the door when he said that, and when I heard it, I stopped so abruptly that Clyde ran into my back and almost fell on his ass. Weighing the pros and cons of each, I quickly assessed what was more of a priority at the moment: the fact that I would potentially be murdered if I didn't make it home in a reasonable amount of time or how much I quite _liked_ Tweek.

"Can you be ready to leave in two minutes."

The response I received was the sound of him crying out in surprise, clamoring to toss his dishes in the sink, Token telling him, "I'll clean up for you, don't worry about it man," and then him scurrying to the living room to collect his things.

Fortunately for me, Tweek didn't disappoint, and in a record time of thirty seconds, the three of us had said our goodbyes to Token and were sitting in Clyde's car, pulling out of the driveway.

Unlike Token's car, Clyde's came with the standard four doors, so, though I did offer Tweek the front seat about thirty times, I didn't feel as bad when he insisted on the back and stubbornly sat there. Clyde had whined a little when the seating arrangement had been finalized this way, and I couldn't figure out why until the car turned on and the speakers began blasting with the sounds of Lady Gaga.

"Clyde."

"What?" he scoffed, pouting slightly. "Tweek likes my Gaga mixtape. We listened to it yesterday."

I glanced at the rear view mirror and saw Tweek leaning against a fist and staring out the window, looking as if he hadn't heard a word we had said, nor whatever was playing on the stereo.

"He doesn't give two shits," I said.

"Yeah huh! He knew all the fucking words to all the songs. Danced along and everything! It was a thing of beauty, the two of us!"

While that mental image was definitely going to entertain me for the entire ride, it didn't look like it would be coming to fruition any time soon, so I reached over and turned off the music, much to Clyde's protest. Absolute silence was A-OK with me, since my only other option was to turn on the radio, and that was out of the question. How much of a piece of crap Clyde's car is should indicate to you just how much money he's making at Thompson's Grocer and how little his middle class shoe store-owning father was contributing to this dying cause. First of all, it still only played cassettes. Yes, it was _that_ old. I'm pretty sure it was a hand-me-down from his dad, and the fact that it only plays cassettes forces Clyde to sit in front of his computer with a tape recorder pressed against the speakers if he wants to play his favorite music in his car. Secondly, the knobs on the stereo completely flat lined a few months ago so now it only plays the stations he has preset, and they're all _his_ kinds of stations. Those are just two issues in regards to he music situation in the car; this doesn't even begin to list all his issues with the thing constantly stalling or the holes in the upholstery, or the fact that you still have to wind the windows up and down and two of them don't even do _that_ and every time the thing tries to climb a hill it hiccups four or five times before threatening to die on us.

I don't know why Clyde is so overprotective over this piece of junk, but he loves it. He even _named_ it. Bonnie, to be exact.

So we sat in silence the entire way to my house, which Clyde spent the whole time grumbling about. Tweek hadn't said a word, and I didn't realize why until we'd reached my house and I'd turned to the backseat to say goodbye to him.

Snoring lightly, hunched over, and with his head resting against his window, Tweek slept, looking just as calm as I remembered him looking the night before, save for the occasional twitch of his nose or clench of his fingers.

"Don't worry about him, he did this to me yesterday, too," Clyde explained when he noticed me staring.

"He drank two mugs of coffee this morning."

"Told me car rides are the number one way to get him to fall asleep. Coffee is no match."

When the time span of my lingering gaze crossed the line from harmful curiosity to being somewhat creepy, I finally tore my eyes away and, after grabbing my stuff, having a fight with the door handle, exiting the car, and walking up to my front step, waved briefly at Clyde as he sped away.

As I crept back into the house, I noticed the clock on the wall read about nine o'clock.

Taking into account what time we usually left in the mornings (which was 11), how long it takes the rest of my house to get ready for church (a half an hour to an hour for each of them), the fact that we only had two bathrooms, and my own need to get ready before Bea (with whom I shared a bathroom) hijacked all the hot water, that left me with about forty-five minutes to go collapse on my bed and momentarily forget the intense fatigue that had suddenly and undesirably snuck up on me.

So I did just that. Let me tell you, that was the most glorious forty-five minutes of my life, and probably the most painful it has ever been to wake up. I actually would have kept sleeping had my dad not taken a broom by the bristles and started pounding the thing incessantly against the ceiling under my bedroom. Even though I had somehow managed to respond to the call and drag myself into my shower a few minutes later, I ended up falling asleep in there and ate into my precious five minutes of shower time before Bea began kicking at the door.

I was hoping that once I got out of there and dressed that I could lay on the couch and shut my eyes for a few more minutes and there would be no more problems, but that proved not to be the case.

"You're not wearing that to church, are you?" my mother asked, raising an eyebrow in my direction as I tried—and failed—to slink past the kitchen without being noticed.

I glanced down at my clothes, which was something I'd found myself doing a lot in the past twenty-four hours. "What?"

She scrunched up her nose disapprovingly. "You look like a hoodlum."

"It's just a shirt and pants, ma."

"Where are your nice church clothes?"

"In the laundry." Where I'd tossed them from my duffel bag minutes before I flung myself into bed. I had one nice shirt, and I'd worn it the night before.

She frowned. "What are they doing there?"

"I…"

What was I supposed to say? Trying to impress the boy I had a crush on? I don't know which part she would make fun of me for first, the fact that I had feelings for a person or what a douchebag it was turning me into. Mom is pretty mom-ish when she needs to be, but when situations like these arise, she really turns into an immature older sister. It was _hell_ when she found out Red had a crush on me. Kept pinching my cheeks and calling me "loverboy," and she's real lucky she is my mom because the fact alone that she was a woman was not going to hold me back from getting violent.

How to lie to her, then.

Couldn't tell her I had been on a date—that would be just as bad. Couldn't tell her I'd forgot to wash them—she'd see through that lie immediately, considering I very strictly do my laundry every Sunday afternoon, and I had no other opportunity to be wearing these clothes other _than_ church.

"...uh, I leant them to Clyde. For a date."

"You leant Clyde your clothes? He didn't stretch them out, did he?"

"Um, I hope not."

"I thought you boys were having a sleepover last night."

"We were. The date was a few days ago."

"Did you get them back, at least?"

"Yes, I"—I cringed—"hadn't gotten a chance to wash them."

"That's very unlike you, Craig."

"I was busy." Fortunately I had an excellent poker face for lying, because this was sounding dumber and dumber the more I kept it up.

"Well, whatever. You still can't wear that."

"You want me to go to church naked? That'll go over real well."

"What about that nice suit you wore to—"

"I'm not wearing a goddamn tux for an hour-long service."

"Craig."

"Come on, look, these are the nicest jeans I own."

She hummed to herself, walking a half circle around me. "Okay, the jeans can pass if you'll let me iron them."

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever."

"But you need to change that shirt. There must be something in your room that will work."

"How about I just not go to church and stay home to wash my clothes."

"How about I ground you for a week."

I sighed. It's not like I left the house that much anyway, but when mom grounds me, dad usually hears about it, and double-teams with her to make it as painful as possible. Like that one time he made me take my sister and her soccer team to Chuck E. Cheese.

"Gimme a sec."

I turned and raced back up the stairs. My dad, walking out of the hallway closet at that exact moment with a pair of shoes, managed to intercept the beeline I was intending to make to the second staircase that lead up to my room.

"The hell are you wearing, boy?"

Congratulations, father, you are the millionth person to ask me that in the past twenty-four hours.

"It's a shirt, pop."

"Not a church-shirt."

"Save it, mom already gave me this talk."

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know. I don't have any other clothes."

"Oh."

"Don't just 'oh' me, dad, can't you help me?"

Helping and my father were two concepts that were not often seen within a close radius of one another, but he surprised me when he pondered my question, and then, gesturing to the master bedroom, said, "come on in here, lemme see what I could let you borrow."

I groaned.

"Pop, no offense, but you're, like, forty times bigger than me." I mean, I wasn't exactly a twig. I had an average build. Little muscle, a healthy roundage to my gut. Decent enough to look at, I guess, but nothing spectacular. Dad, on the other hand, had shoulders so broad a football player would be jealous and was one can of booze away from a kegger-belly.

"Shut your hole, and get in here." He disappeared before I could protest any further, and when I followed him into the room, I found him digging around his closet until finally, from the furthest reaches of the corner, he retrieved a parcel. He handed it to me, and I gingerly opened it. Inside was a long-sleeved pinstriped button up shirt, a tie, and something wooly just underneath the shirt. I glanced at their tags and found that they were just a smidgen bigger than what I normally wore. That smidgen would hardly make a difference in the long run. They were still adequate.

"Why do you…?"

"Let's just say I haven't exactly been honest with your Uncle Bart about my figure," my dad explained, chuckling nervously. "He and your Aunt Maddy sent me this a few Christmases back and of course I can't fit the damn thing, so you might as well make better use of it."

I thanked my dad, returning back to my room to go try them on. I removed the shirt first, slipping it on and buttoning it up. It fit well enough, so I tried on the tie, too. This outfit was starting to look halfway presentable, until I returned to the package and realized the thing on the bottom was a sweater vest. I'd never worn one of these before and had never intended to. It seemed like a one-way ticket to Nerdsville, so I placed it back down, ready to leave the room and find my mom.

She found me first, though, as she suddenly burst through the door and exclaimed loudly with delight. "Oh, Craig, you look _so_ handsome."

"Awesome, can we go?"

"What's this?"

Unfortunately, I hadn't thought to cover up the rest of the box, and before I could hide it, she'd already raced past me to grab the vest. "You have to try it on with this!"

"No. Mom—no."

"Put it on!"

I wouldn't dare deny my own mother, not when she has her mind set on something. She has an amazing backhand. In any case, she was on me before I got a chance to protest, tugging the thing over my head, and onto my frame.

Though I probably shouldn't have, I risked a look at the mirror and grimaced. I looked like I should join the chess club at school.

Mom didn't agree, or perhaps this was exactly what she was going for. "You look so cute!"

I wanted to assure her otherwise, but she left the room quickly and returned a few seconds later with a comb. I don't know why I wasn't able to put together what she was planning on doing before she got a chance to do it, but by that point she had already tore my hat off and attacked my hair.

When I unwisely made a second glance back at the mirror, I saw that my once naturally messy and disheveled hair was…pristine. Mom had parted it to the side and combed it neatly down on the top. I felt like a goober.

"You don't expect me to go outside like this," I said, staring at her.

"I don't have to expect things. I know things."

I scoffed. "Whatever, I'm wearing my hat anyway."

"Uh, no, you're not.

"Are you shitting me."

"Your outfit would look nicer without it on."

"I look like a dork."

"Well, it's about time your outsides matched your insides, hm?" This sort of comment would have earned anyone else a death glare and some sort of crass retort, but, once again, this was mom, so there was little I could do.

Despite what she'd said to me just a little bit ago, I still clung to the small hope that she couldn't possibly be _serious_ about me having to leave the house in this condition.

However, I found that not to be the case when, even after we were making our way through the tall double door of the back of our church awhile later and I hastily attempted last minute adjustments to my _hair_ at least, she rounded on me instantly, like she had some kind of sixth sense that detected whenever I would dishevel my person, and came at me with the comb again. I hadn't been banking on her carrying that around in her purse.

She'd been trying to assure me that I looked fine during the entire drive to church, but her words and opinion were completely meaningless to me, especially when the other two members of my family didn't share her views at _all_. Dad's first instinct when he saw me was to frown and open his mouth, but mom shot him a look and he shut up, shaking his head. He's not one for confrontation, but I bet if mom weren't there, he would have had a few choice words to say questioning my manlihood. Bea, who latches onto any opportunity to give me hell, burst out laughing the moment she saw me, quickly snapped a picture of me with her phone, then spent the entire car ride spewing every clever thing she could think of that would adequately ridicule my appearance. Mom kept trying to get her to stop, but I could see dad over there behind the steering wheel, chuckling quietly to himself every time she said something particularly witty.

You'd think I wouldn't care, that I don't give a shit what they have to say, what I look like, what others think of me, and I don't, I really don't. My family is like this daily. I've become sort of numb to the whole ordeal, and I endured the entire experience with a sigh or two and my refined ability to pretend I can't hear a word anyone is saying. Even after we shuffled our way sideways into a pew that happened to be the dead center of the church and I could feel the eyes of all the people I went to school with following me, I continually reminded myself that I disliked most of them anyway and I would make up for all this by flipping them off a few extra times come Monday.

The only reason I wanted to fight this was because it's always annoying to give people a reason to stare at me. I don't care, ultimately, but I'd really just rather that they not, and it's so much easier to achieve this when I'm boring and predictable in my daily appearance. What it boiled down to was that I _felt_ completely unlike myself, but I guess mom is right in that regard: my outsides _were_ matching my insides, as I'd been feeling completely unlike myself for about two weeks now.

The service commenced, and, as per usual, I spaced out almost immediately. Perhaps I spaced out even faster than immediately, considering I was also inebriated with a fatigue that was quick to catch up with me. My eyes wandered, the words of Father Maxi and every sudden shuffling or cough around me turning into background white noise.

Soon my eyes became heavy and the walls of the church melted away. I traveled fast, finding myself far away and in other places. On the moon, for a moment, in a forest in the next. For a brief time I was back in the church but everyone around me disappeared and the place was decrepit and dusty and dank and there was, of course, the same apocalypse going on outside as was going on in my school that last Saturday. Probably one thing I do out of habit the most is going to a place and imagining what it would be like to be there during a zombie invasion. The bigger the place is, the more likely I am to consider this. Where I would hide, what would I do, how _safe_ or _screwed_ I would feel. I'd already long since decided that in the church I would hole myself up in the small room up on the second floor, armed with a rifle, and just keep shooting out the window.

I kept drifting in and out of attentiveness, and occasionally I would catch a few words from the priest, like about love and God and Jesus. I was usually only able to register these things when I had to stand or kneel or move and was jostled out of my reverie, and in those brief moments, I also caught glimpses of people I knew around me: Token and his family in the third pew of the left-most row of benches, Clyde two rows ahead of my family, sitting close to the aisle and hunched over what I guessed was probably his phone. Stan and Cartman and Kenny and their respective families took up the first few rows and I am still wondering who keeps letting them in here when they're all clearly evil.

Probably the most poignant person my eyes landed on was—as I'm sure you've surmised by now—Tweek, whom I didn't notice until I was walking back to my pew after communion. He was four or so rows ahead of me, sitting close to the center aisle, staring fixedly up at the large cross up at the front. I had very little time to focus on his face as I made my way back to my seat, but as far as I could tell, he looked tired and solemn. He was also completely alone.

The minute I realized where he was sitting, it became impossible for my mind to continue wandering in the same manner as before. I found myself gazing at him for the duration of the service: gauging the way he reacted to things, words, people around him, noticing the way he had a habit of grabbing at his long hair strands every minute or so, observing the posture he took while he sat (slouching, then occasionally stiff, and it was always too late for me to notice if such a posture was triggered by certain words or phrases). There wasn't a whole lot I could go by just staring at his back, but it was more than enough to keep me occupied until mass ended.

Everyone stood up at the same time and shuffled out the church together, and I can never understand _why_ they bother being so eager to leave. After-mass activities involve the entire congregation mingling outside the church doors for a half an hour, talking and laughing and gossiping and shit like they haven't seen each other in thirty years, even though we live in the same goddamn small town and more likely see each other every fucking day. It's pretty stupid, and I hate lingering around this place more than I have to.

When my family took their turn to shuffle out of our pew to go get their socializing on, I remained sitting and told them I would meet them out there in a few minutes. Dad didn't care (big surprise), Bea expressed her supreme disappointment in not being able to parade my horrid outfit in front of everybody, and Mom kept asking me if I was okay and questioning my decision to stay, and I had to pull out all my guns to convince her to leave me alone, even resorting to lying and telling her I needed a few more minutes to "pray".

They left after a few minutes, and then Token and Clyde walked by me at the same time, snickering and pointing at me, and I flipped them both off.

"You can't do that in a church," Clyde protested with a whine.

"Also very unbecoming of pretty little boys in argyle sweater vests," Token added with a grin.

"And you would know," I snapped. "Bet I'd fit in at one of your rich people shindigs, eh, Moneybags?"

"At least none of us look like tools." Token had all right to say that because no matter how much we ripped on him for the nicer clothes he owned and wore, he looked downright perfect in them, like he probably came out of the womb decked in refinery.

They said a few more things to me, like, "which preppy mathlete nerd did you beat up and leave naked somewhere," or, "you going to go golfing in that, too?" before running out of ways to mock me and left, laughing.

I watched the rest of the church empty, and the place became quiet and desolate soon enough. I had been staring up at one of the large stained glass windows that lined either wall of the building before my glance roamed around the rest of the place and I soaked in the tranquility that accompanies a silent and vacated space.

Mostly vacated, anyway. It took me a few seconds but my eyes finally descended on the figure four rows ahead of me, the same person I'd been staring at for the latter half of service, still in his pew, with his gaze continuing to linger on the cross ahead of us. This time, though, he wasn't simply sitting. He was kneeling, with his hands clasped in front of him.

I remained in my seat, watching him still, and after ten long minutes, he finally got up and sat back in his pew, lounging in it in the posture of a lackluster slouch, his gaze ever fixed on that cross.

It took a few seconds of mental negotiation on my end of whether or not I should go over there and say hi, though I don't know why it mattered since I'd just seen him not more than two or three hours ago.

Finally, I made up my mind.

"Hey," I said, sliding into the pew next to him. His head popped up instantly, glancing over at me.

"Ah! I didn't know you were here!" he whispered fervently.

"Mmyup, a few rows back." I gestured in that direction with a thumb. "This is why I was in a rush to leave."

He nodded, then really _looked_ at me, as if for the first time.

I ran a hand across my sweater vest self-consciously. "Don't ask. Or mention it, I know I look like a dumbass."

"I wasn't going to say that! You look nice!"

I snorted derisively.

"You do! I said you looked nice last night, too." He lifted a hand and tentatively touched the front of the vest, his fingers gently feeling the material.

I shivered slightly and without meaning to, my heart beat suddenly becoming noticeable in my ear.

"I like this especially, though," he mused before taking his hand away. "It makes you look smart."

I cocked an eyebrow at him. "So what do I look like without it? An idiot?"

He shrugged.

I grinned. "You're a little smartass, aren't you?"

"I was joking!" He laughed a little. "Really, though. I like it. You look cute."

"That's what my mom said."

"It's true!"

"You really shouldn't use that word to describe me. It's the last thing _anyone_ should ever call me."

"I'm just repaying you for the many times you have unfittingly chosen to call me that, okay. Plus, that's _exactly_ why it's so cute. It's so unlike you to look like this."

"First you call me an idiot, then you say that I'm only cute when I look completely unlike myself. Well, thanks for the ego-boost."

He laughed again. "You're getting an overhaul on compliments and you can't even take them."

"Back-handed compliments don't count."

"Fine!" He threw his hands up in the air before folding them over his chest. "Craig, you're handsome and smart _all_ the time, but today you're wearing nice clothes. Is that what you want to hear?"

"Well, that's certainly not _false_ information."

His response was harshly shoving me into the side of the pew, and I playfully shoved him back.

"What are you even still doing here, anyway?"

"I could ask you the same thing!"

"My parents are being friendly, and I didn't want to wait outside for them."

"Right, you don't like crowds."

I was pleased that he knew that.

Tweek didn't continue immediately, but he finally said, "I was just in here thinking."

"You looked like you were praying."

"Maybe I was!"

"I never took you for the religious type."

"Again, I could say the same about you."

I snorted. "Uh, it's less that I'm especially religious, more than I'm an advocate of not being murdered by my parents for not going to church with them."

He nodded. "I'm not really, either. It's, um, it's complicated."

I nudged him with my shoulder. "Mind elaborating?"

"Is that a_ question_?" he asked, suddenly smirking.

"Yes..."

"Your _one_ question?"

And then I remembered our conversation at breakfast a few hours ago.

I sighed. "Yes, fine, that's my one question."

He took in a big breath. "I'm not especially fond of or affiliated with any sort of religion, but I wouldn't immediately write myself off as a nonbeliever."

"Oh, wow, I sincerely hope you don't think that was any more clear than, 'it's complicated.'"

He shrugged. "I'm a speculative person. There are too many questions to be led down one exact path, so it's impossible for me to be firm about _anything_ I do or don't believe in. There's always the possibility that I'm terribly wrong, y'know? So I keep an open mind."

"Giving the Catholic church the benefit of the doubt, are you."

"Something like that. It's not like this is the only place I frequent. I've been to Kyle's synagogue and I go to a Buddhist temple a few towns away with my parents, too. We just kind of go to these places when it feels right."

"And it felt right today?"

"Oh, yes. For me, at least. That's why I'm here by myself. My parents are at home." He sighed and gazed back up at the cross. "I'm neither denying nor affirming the existence of a higher being, but I'm definitely not opposed to the idea that one exists, if only to humor…I don't even know. Myself? Him? Sate my paranoia that maybe he's real or maybe I'm praying to the wrong dude, but _God_ specifically… he's got a rough reputation as being both loving and painfully stern, but I ascribe to the notion that he's not completely a bad guy, just—misunderstood! And he listens, or he's supposed to, anyway, right, and I already talk to myself way too much. It's kind of nice to think I've got a nonjudgmental audience, someone listening without responding or acknowledgement, even if he's not for real. The point is I get to dump my baggage and feel like _somebody_ has heard me."

"Baggage?"

"Nice try." He smiled. "I already gave you too many freebies."

"Those were elaborating sub-questions, as is this one."

"Nope, sorry."

"Fucking shit, well I thought I could get away with that."

"Shame on you for thinking you could."

"Yeah, yeah."

His tongue stuck out, gazing at me closely. His eyes squinted a bit in concentration, then finally…

"Do you own any boring lamps?"

"Is this like the sweater question."

"No answering questions with questions!"

"Um, pretty sure all my lamps are boring."

"_How_ boring?"

"I don't know, dude, it's just a light and a shade, we probably got them all at Wal-Mart, what else do you want me to say?

He hummed, like I'd said something incredibly remarkable. "What about quirky ones?"

"Uh, I don't know if it counts, but I have one lamp that I use specifically for filming movies. It gives the right amount and kind of ambient light I need."

"Any others?"

"Well, my bedside clock is shaped like a car and I can press a button on it and the headlights turn on."

"Interesting…"

"Yeah, real fascinating. Are we done with the lamp question."

"What is your clearest memory of the two of us?"

Just as I assumed he would, he dealt me a harmlessly weird question before handing me a heavier one.

"Let me think about that one." I placed a fist against my lips, gazing in no particular direction, contemplating.

When I attempted to call Tweek to mind, my brain flooded with memories of the past two weeks with him, so I attempted to look back to elementary school, specifically fourth grade and farther back. I saw snatches of things, none necessarily having to do with Tweek. I remembered a jungle filled with giant food, remembered the large orca whale at the Denver SeaPark, recalled the many hours I'd been consumed getting my neighbor's pets to sit still with a silly hat on their heads while I stood by and recorded them. I tried conjuring memories with Token and Clyde and hoped those would ring some bells, and I saw matching pink track jackets, wandering around a county fair looking for Butters, us standing on each other's shoulders to stare through a window of the home of two people with the most _ridiculous_ buttfaces.

I remembered our fight in the third grade. In fact, the moment it came to mind, huge details about it started returning to me, so I told him that was it.

"You said I ate poop and that I liked it."

"I _didn't_! Cartman did! You know that!"

"Yeah, well, at the time, I thought you did. To be honest, I was more confused than mad about that."

"You said I had crooked teeth and that I was a chicken!"

"Well, I know you're not a chicken, but—" I reached over and with my thumb, tugged down the corner of his lips. "Those are some straight-ass pearly whites if I've ever seen any. Braces?"

"Uh-huh! Eighth grade!"

"Hey, same here. We could have made out and got our teeth stuck together."

_God_, why did I _say_ that?

"That's your clearest memory, then?" Tweek asked quickly, probably trying to diffuse the awkward. "Me kicking your ass on the playground?"

"Me kicking _your_ ass on the playground, you mean."

"No, I mean what I said."

"Well, then, maybe it's not _your_ clearest memory."

"It definitely isn't, but would you like a _rematch_ just to make sure?"

"I'll pass, thanks."

"Thought so."

We sat in silence for a moment.

"If you want me to remember something so badly, why can't you just tell me what it is?"

"You can wait for your next round of questions to ask me that."

"Goddammit, Tweek, why is it so hard to get a straight answer out of you?"

"Next round!"

I sighed, rubbing at my right temple. "Last question, get it over with."

"Why exactly are you dressing so nice lately?"

"Wow, whopping surprise there with the question."

"I just—are you going somewhere? A spy? _Dying_?"

"Would it bother you find out if I _was_?"

"Yes, of course!"

I slung my arms behind the pew, leaning against it. "Well, don't worry, I wasn't planning on it anytime soon."

"So why then?"

"Well, for starters, I'm only wearing _this_ because I wore my normal church clothes last night."

"Which I _still_ can't figure out."

"I already told you why."

"You told me you wanted to look nice once in awhile."

"That's the truth."

"No, it isn't."

"Okay, well, maybe I want to stand out a little more."

"You don't even _like_ anyone, why would you care about that?"

I glanced up at the cross behind the altar, avoiding eye contact. "That's not true. I like at least one person." I looked back at him. "You wound me. Again. You're so good at that."

"I didn't mean like—!"

"I don't want to stand out to _everyone_."

"You say that like everyone hasn't already noticed!"

"Their opinions don't matter to me."

He rolled his eyes. "Of course they don't." Then he added, "if it makes any difference, I guess, you look nice to me. Although your hair looks a little silly." He smiled a little, then sat up, reached over, and ran a hand through my neatly combed hair, tousling it a bit.

He pulled back when he seemed satisfied. "Much better, although not quite Craig. Needs more hat."

I touched the part of my hair where he'd ran his hand through. "Mom wouldn't let me wear it."

"Well, I like you either way, so don't worry too much about it."

Before I could respond, he stood up quickly, squeezing himself past me and out into the aisle. "See you around, Craig."

I turned quickly in my pew. "You're leaving?"

"I have to go home. You can leave with me. I mean, if you want to. I could help you find your parents."

I considered his offer for a moment, and then shook my head. "No, um, I think I'll stay here a little bit more."

He smiled a little, then, and waved before turning and leaving me alone in this tiny little church that wasn't quite so tiny when I was the only one in it and was unmistakably more eerie in a weirdly beautiful sort of way.

I slumped further into the pew, gazing straight across at the cross. Absentmindedly I ran my hand straight through my hair, letting the strands fall messily into my face.

It wasn't until my sister stormed back in a seven minutes later that I finally got up and left.

* * *

Inspiration finds me in the weirdest places. Having my teeth cleaned at the dentist's office, trolling around with Clyde and Token at a mattress store, sitting upside down in my father's La-Z-Boy—all birthplaces of some really kickass ideas. I stopped being surprised about this bizarre trend a long ago, which is why I bothered with my job in the first place, if you'll recall. I reasoned at the time that it was just random enough to spark something.

It hadn't quite done anything phenomenal for me yet, but some things take time, and I'm a patient boy.

For instance, something did in fact come to me. Finally. Not at work, though, but at the Laundromat which, by my standards of where inspiration usually visited me, wasn't all that weird.

It was a few weeks after the weekend of our sleepover at Token's and on a Sunday afternoon, since, as I've mentioned, that's when I usually do my laundry.

You might be wondering why I do my laundry at a public place rather than within the comfort of my own home, which is an excellent question, since leaving the house is usually the last thing I want to be doing with time otherwise spent washing my clothes. The answer to this completely valid inquiry is that our washer broke down sometime around the last week of December. It definitely wasn't my fault, nor my mom's, and while I don't want to point fingers or anything, let's just say mom was _away_ one weekend visiting her sick sister and I'd been neglectful in my duties to make sure dad didn't break anything. I still don't know how he did it, exactly, but my theory is he stuffed too many of his circus-tent sized shirts and parkas in at the same time and the poor unsuspecting machine didn't know how to handle it.

Anyway, long story short, we couldn't afford to buy a new one right away, so here I was, the beginning of May, and still frequenting the Laundromat four blocks away every Sunday afternoon. My family, all three of them, insisted that every Sunday wasn't reasonable or necessary, that it was quite an expense cutting into the fund to buy the new washer, and that washing our clothes every two weeks instead should sufficient enough. In my world, such bullshit does not fly, and I sure as hell dig into my allowance and paycheck to make sure _my_ linens are being treated with the respect they deserve. The result is that the rest of them take advantage of the fact that I am making a trip to this place each week as well as the fact that I am quite good at washing clothes and dump _their_ dirty laundry on me during their designated Sundays.

"While you're out, son, do you mind bringing my delicates and these towels along with you? Here's two dollars."

"_Craig_, my jumper has _mud_ on it, take it!"

"Boy, I want this stain gone when you get back, you hear me?"

Every two weeks, without fail. Eventually they stopped announcing it and I'd leave my room to find bags of dirty clothes piled outside my door. I didn't mind, really, except for the fact that suddenly my attentiveness to clean clothes wasn't "odd" or "questionable" anymore but was now an in-demand job.

To be honest, the reason I don't complain or mind entirely is because I like doing laundry and I actually look forward to this part of my week the most. Or at least I used to, back when it was an undisturbed, solitary activity. As it is with most things, there was a catch, and the Laundromat's catch was Kenny.

You see, while my family is just low enough middle class to be unable to buy a new washing machine, Kenny is so poor that scrounging up the quarters necessary to wash his clothes at the Laundromat was a blessing. So, though my first few weeks attending this place were blissfully and wonderfully lonesome, the happiness came to a crashing end at about week four, when Kenny waltzed in with a Ziploc bag of change and two pillowcases of clothes.

If nothing else about that day, I can at least remember with distinct detail the expression of pure delight his face broke into upon seeing me there at the other end of the building: that toothy grin and those dirty dimpled cheeks. The best way to have described Kenny's entire demeanor is to compare it to a Golden Retriever, from the way his long dirty blonde hair flew about as he raced over to me, to the permanent smile he wore which legitimately made me feel like he would lick my face at any minute, to the way he followed me around the room like he had no place better to be.

From that day forward, every Sunday, at two o'clock sharp he showed up, even if he didn't have anything to wash, knowing I'd be there. He'd stick around for as long as I was there then split when I left. There was no shortage on the activities he did to keep himself occupied when he had no reason to be there, either. He'd force conversation on me, coax me into buying him lunch, help me with _my_ laundry (I learned to stop letting him do this after I returned home and my mom found she was missing two or three of her panties). One time he brought a coloring book he stole from his sister and another time he brought a board game.

Sometimes I consider showing up at a much different time than two in the afternoon or on a different day completely, but knowing Kenny, he'd figure out my change in schedule _some_how. Plus, I thrive on routine, so that was out of the question.

I don't know why he was so happy to see me or hang out with me, besides him intentionally wanting to irritate me. I do have a theory, though, that, being that he's the poorest kid I know and often got ridiculed for this, he was probably delighted to have a companion in this portion of his journey through destitution. Judging by the age groups of the people who usually came to this place, I observed that kids our age didn't come by here often.

I was not a permanent fixture here, I knew that, but it made me hate him a little less to think of the whole situation that way.

But only just a little less. He's still an annoying prick. You do not understand how hard it is to get your clothes washed when a dude keeps trying to coax you to hold his hand the whole time, or how irritating it is when you want to just soak in the white noise that is twenty or so spinning washers and there's this dillhole sitting on the nearest drying machine belting country songs and playing the harmonica. It is not fun.

On this particular Sunday I'd managed to arrive earlier than he had, so I had a few precious minutes to myself. I used them wisely. Normally when Kenny is around I end up trying to get my clothes done as soon as possible, but without him, I get to do it the proper way—relaxed, meticulously, methodically. I strode pass the entire left wall of washing machines, aiming for my favorite set of washers, numbers 17, 18, and 19, right near the corner. They're not just my favorites because they're far from the door, but because they just work the best, I can _feel_ it. They're also never being used when I show up, which I just assume is a sign that we were fated to be together.

For about five minutes, I had number eighteen open and was carefully picking out all the whites from mine, my mother's, my father's, and my sister's bags of clothes. I turned them all inside out, double-checked all the labels to make sure I was washing them at the right temperature (though I had them all memorized), and carefully measured out the detergent. I did this for the darks and colors, too, shoving them respectively in seventeen and nineteen. That was only half of my load, but I couldn't overload the washers and refused to use any other. So, satisfied, I eased myself into a sitting position with my back against the dryer directly across and in the middle of the place, and waited.

I could literally wait through the entire cycle of clothes, doing nothing, just sitting there, staring, without getting bored for even a second. I used to do this at home with our washer back when it was still alive. Sit in front of it. For hours. Sometimes I'd do my homework in front of it. Mostly I would just watch it, watch the way the clothes would tumble about inside, watch the way the water and soap bubbles sloshed against the window. I was pleased to find that this Laundromat had all front load washers and dryers because, honestly, this was like watching TV to me, and this place offered an array of about twenty different channels.

It was hypnotizing, really, and soothing, to say the least. A mind can really wander in a place like this, and that's all I need to be entertained.

Gazing into the face of my washer and its colored innards took me far away, dissolved away the Laundromat walls and replaced them with swiftly tilting planets and burning stars and galaxies that stretched and twirled and the dark recesses of space. I saw a rocket ship, large, NASA-status, hurtling through the milky way with the destination of earth, and I don't know where I was going with this or what truly was to become of it because my reverie was suddenly interrupted by the sounds of, "Do Your Ears Hang Low" flowing into the place from just outside the front door.

It was from an ice cream truck lingering far too long on the street just outside, and when its sound finally began fading away as it drove off, it was immediately replaced by someone _whistling_ the same tune and getting closer and closer. Before I knew it, the whistling was usurped by the more familiar sound of sneakers skidding against linoleum and Kenny came racing toward me, sliding from his feet to his butt to right smack up against my side with a grace that was almost acrobatic. He also managed all this while his hands were occupied with two popsicles, both of which he gestured out to me.

"Hey, man, I had some loose change, so I bought us these."

One was shaped like Spongebob, the other like Batman. Each was incredibly goofy looking, lopsided and melting from their gumball eyeballs. I eyed them, eyed Kenny, then accepted Batman.

Kenny smiled, then shoved a generous corner of Spongebob's head in his mouth. I had made the mistake of placing the popsicle in my left hand, leaving the one closest to Kenny vacant and sitting on my thigh, so he took this opportunity to slide his hand over it. I shoved him so hard he accidentally bit down on the popsicle and swallowed one of Spongebob's eyes.

After a coughing fit he took a few minutes to compose himself from, he settled himself back next to me and said with a grin like nothing had just happened, "how goes it, Stumpy?"

"Fine."

"_Fascinating_, tell me more."

"Well, I was just about to have an epiphany before you strolled in like the goddamn circus."

"Aw, you're _always_ about to have an epiphany."

"And you're always stomping around like a fucking parade."

"Life is a parade my friend," he said, chuckling.

"I'm not your friend."

"Mmhm, sure, well, _Not-My-Friend_, would you mind if I made a harmless inquiry, then?"

"Yes."

"_Please_?"

I sighed. "What."

"Are you going to the dance?"

"What dance."

"The junior prom?"

Oh. Right. I'd forgotten about that.

"You mean the dance you spent two years worth of an allowance to buy a ticket for."

"Yes! That one. And hey, I like to dance, can you blame me?"

"And you can't just stay home and dance."

"No, dude, that's no fun."

"I just don't see what's the difference."

"Look, shut up and answer the question."

"What question."

He threw his hands up in the air. "Are you going!"

"No."

"So you don't have a date, then?"

I raised an eyebrow. "I think that goes without saying."

"Sweet!" He pumped a fist. "You wanna be mine?"

"_No_."

"Aw, come on, I'll make it worth your while."

"How, exactly, could this possibly be worth _anyone's_ while?"

"I'll take you out to a nice dinner."

"Your idea of a nice dinner is eating frozen microwave dinners on a bus stop bench, though."

It was kind of a douchebag move of me to say that, and I realized this immediately when he scowled at me. Kenny doesn't get mad too often, but there are certain subjects with him that you should just tread lightly upon with him.

"Don't be an asshole. I'm a good date, okay."

I glanced at the ceiling exasperatedly. "Are you for real right now? _No. Never_."

"Ugh, fine." He took a contemplative bite out of Spongebob. "What about Token? Clyde? They taken yet?"

"Token's going with Red, Clyde's going 'stag'"—I used air quotes for this—"with Kevin."

"So he's free, then?"

"Don't you have your own friends to hit on?"

"Um, Stan is going with Wendy and Kyle is going with Bebe."

That was no surprise. Kyle and Bebe aren't dating, but out of the convenience that is their respective best friends' relationship, they tend to become each other's platonic friendly dates if they can't be bothered to find anyone else. It's been like this for as long as anyone could remember. They're not even interested in each other. Kyle apparently has this thing with a girl he met on the Internet, and Bebe is still harboring feelings for Clyde. Speaking of which, those two are off and on every few months, and it's been off for so long, it's about time it became on. I'm just waiting for the day.

For the record, I have no interest in gossip or drama, but with people like Kenny and Clyde hanging around you, I learn a lot of things I really don't care to know about.

"What about Fatso."

"Eric would sooner make-out with Butters than be my date to anything. Besides, he's not having any luck himself and is insisting the two of us go just to wreck havoc." He suddenly puffed out his gut, furrowed his brows, and in his best Cartman voice, said, "I'll teach those goddamn hoes to turn Eric Cartman down! I'll make them eat their parents!"

I snorted. "Well, why _don't_ you just go with him."

"While that may sound like a lot of fun, that's the last resort of a desperate man. I can do better than that!"

"And your first instinct is to ask me?"

"Calm your tits, Tucker, you're not _that_ fucking special. I asked every girl I could before I settled for you."

I really don't understand Kenny sometimes. There is no word for this kid. He's like the eighth wonder of the world to me in regards to his sexuality. The best I can come up with to describe him is ambiguous. You can ask a group of ten people about what sexual preference they think Kenny has, and you won't get two of the same consecutive answer. If anyone asks, he gives a different story each time. Some days he shows no interest in a particular sex, some days you can't tell whether he's legitimately flirting or he's joking, girl or guy. Even his interest in sex itself is pretty sporadic. Some days he's just really down to fuck, other days he couldn't care less. He's only explicitly lewd with his scarf on, tastefully playful with his dirty self when it's down. There is no consistency with this child, so you really can't blame me when I have to second-guess just about everything he says.

"I'm surprised you're not asking me about Tweek," I said, and I guess I should have known better because the next comment from Kenny was, "that's because I have no desire to be murdered by you."

It was kind of a funny feeling, my entire face turning hot while I was sucking away at the chilly confection in my hand. In the amount of time I sat there thinking up a decent way to answer him, I silently prayed that Kenny hadn't taken note of this rapid change in color of my face.

It had been a few weeks now since I'd told Token about my little secret concerning Tweek, and he still remained my sole confidant. Not even Clyde knew, though it didn't stop him from cracking gay jokes whenever he could. And even though I'd willingly entrusted Token with this information, once in awhile I briefly questioned what kind of state I had been in where I would blabber such information to a living soul in the first place, humoring the idea that I may have been intoxicated and didn't even realize it.

There would just be these moments where I would maybe do something nice for Tweek, like let him borrow a jacket or something, and Token would give me this stupid smile and his eyes would twinkle and I would feel horribly embarrassed. Or days when he'd powwow with me after a hang out and break down all the things I was doing wrong when interacting with Tweek, and I just do _not_ want to hear those things.

So, taking into account the sorts of anxiety I faced in regards to having the one person I trust the most know my secret, one would imagine the kind of lengths I go to to keep such a secret as confidential from everyone else as possible.

Kenny, however, is and always has been my biggest challenge. He's always saying things like this, always suggesting things, and I have to be extremely careful with the way I respond. Being that he is as ambiguous as he is, I never know if he's kidding or testing me. One outburst from me could open up a world of speculation in that conniving little brain of his, and he could turn any offhand comment into full-blown evidence to support his case. I've learned this very well over the past few weeks, but his words and the things they suggest never fail to make me the slightest bit flustered.

I don't know why he cares so much about this and I don't know why I care so much to keep it a secret, but that's the way it is.

"I have no idea what you are referring to," I said through tight lips.

He clicked his tongue. "Wrong move, Stumpy. You know I'm impervious to feigned innocence, don't you?" He chuckled. "Just admit it, the second I would have asked about him, you would have hulk smashed me through a wall."

"I can neither confirm nor deny your accusations."

"But you know what," he continued, "I wouldn't be interested in him at all, even if I knew you weren't a threat."

"Well, _that's_ a lie."

"Nope, and you wanna know why?"

"Not especially, no."

"Because _I_," he stabbed a finger against his chest, before moving it to poke me in the shoulder, "think _you_ should ask him instead."

And then I was gone. There are just some words that trigger things, y'know, and that was definitely a good one. I was miles away or maybe not, I don't know, in some generically well-sized and fancy-looking ballroom and I'm wearing a tux and Tweek is wearing a tux and there's probably a thousand people in this room, but I can't even be _bothered_ with them because I've got much more significant matters to attend to, as embodied by this blond boy that I'm hanging out with, and we're not even dancing, we're at some table in the corner, and we're talking. About what, I don't know, _I don't care_, the image itself is what matters, it's gooey and gross and ugh, but fuck you, Kenny, you put this there you asshole.

What eventually tore me away from this was that same bastard snapping his fingers in my face, muttering, "Craig, back to earth please, we're not done."

"Um, what?" I was in a bit of a daze, I hope he understood.

"You should ask Tweek to the dance."

My face was red, it _had_ to be, but I needed to keep my cool.

"No."

"You know that's the only reason I started this conversation in the first place."

"Oh, really."

"Just to get us to the real matter at hand? Yes. You like how I did that?"

"One of your more clever methods, I must admit."

"Right, so ask him, okay?"

"Dude, _no_."

"Look, it doesn't have to be a big deal or anything. You guys can be as discreet as you want if you don't want anyone saying anything about you two. Keep your PDA to a minimum, no one even has to know that you're dates, it'll just be between the three of us."

"No."

"Are you afraid he'll turn you down?"

"Stop."

"That's the worst I can think of, and it's not like he's going to rip your head off about it. What _exactly_ will you lose here?"

"It's not the talk and it's not the rejection, you simpleton. I'm not interested in him like that, and you need to get off my back about it before I make you."

"Uh-huh. God, you're stubborn."

"Where are you even _getting_ this idea from anyway."

"Clyde. Kid's got a mouth." _Of course_. "But don't act like you're so good at hiding it or anything. I've seen the way you look at him, the way you act around him. I just can't imagine what exactly it is you're afraid of where you can't just make it official."

I wasn't going to get into that again with him, this topic of fear. I wasn't even sure of the answer myself, but fortunately he didn't allow me to dwell on it too long. In fact, his next words did something completely different.

"You know, at this rate, you're not going to end up making a move until the two of you are the last two living beings on the face of this planet."

And there it was. More trigger words, but not exactly the same as they had been a few minutes ago. My eyes fell on the washing machine in front of me again, watching the thing spin my clothes round and round and I could almost _feel_ my brain working at the same sort of rate.

_The last two living beings_.

After I forced Kenny to accept the rest of my Batman popsicle, I reached over beside me, shoving my hand deep into my backpack and pulling out a notebook and a pen. Tucking my legs closer to me and using my thighs as a hard surface, I sat the notebook flat against them and began furiously scribbling away with my pen.

"You need to go away now," I mumbled, not taking my eyes away from the paper.

Kenny had been watching me curiously, but when I said that, he grinned a little, nodded, and eased himself to his feet. He patted my shoulder briefly, then I heard him walk off. I didn't think it would be that easy to get rid of him, but he must have noticed the extreme level of concentration on my face.

I don't know how much sense any of the shit I had wrote down made to anyone but me, but in the time span of finishing my first wash, the second wash, then the drying of both, I had managed to write out about twenty pages of…of _something_, it wasn't quite a script, it wasn't quite storyboarding, wasn't quite outlining or plotting. It was a jumbled concoction of everything and then some. If you wanted a glimpse into the way my brain works creatively, you needed to take a gander at this notebook.

It took me the following week to perfect it to a level I was content with. I had the notebook with me at all times, flipping through its pages two or three times in all my classes, copying down ideas and erasing things during snack and lunch, taking long breaks during work to pour over it, laying awake into the wee hours of the morning just making sure that it looked good in my head. By the time the weekend had arrived again, I had at least a general idea of what I was getting at, an exceptionally rough outline of a script, and a couple concrete scene ideas that I had storyboarded on my whiteboard. It wasn't much, but it was more than I'd done in a long time, and I was very very happy.

So happy that I didn't see a sense in wasting time not getting shit done.

"Where exactly did you say I'm taking us?" Clyde asked me from behind the wheel his car Saturday afternoon.

"I didn't," I said. I was directing him from the passenger seat, Token was behind me, and Tweek was behind Clyde. The four of us had piled into the car about fifteen minutes prior and were currently rolling down the highway, having left the town limits of South Park not less than five minutes ago.

In retrospect, it may have been a little unreasonable on my part to drag the three of them out with me to help me and not tell them anything about where we were going. Especially Clyde, who was blindly following my navigational directions. To be fair, though, I did inform them of the purpose of our trip, which was in fact to work on the project I had been slaving over the past few days. I'd kept the three of them up to speed on my progress with the thing each day, and around Thursday I'd told them what I was aiming for with the plot. Friday I'd given them rough copies of the script, but who knows if any of them actually read it. It hardly mattered, I guess, since the scene I wanted to shot today didn't require many speaking parts.

I didn't want snow in my shots, and, even though spring was nearly over, there weren't too many parts of South Park that experienced a shortage of snow this time of year, thus why we had to drive a little way out of town and down the mountain range. Plus, what I really wanted was the plains: tall brown-green grass, a wide expanse of sky, a thin road running along side it that didn't feature many cars. My dad had taken me to this place once, just off the side of the road, that was just miles and miles of grass plains, and if you walked for a bit you would hit a forest and then a lake, and that's where he liked to go fishing.

This is where I told Clyde to park the car.

"Oh, _God_, what are we doing here, man?" Tweek cried, his face pushed up against the glass window of the car as he stared out at the expanse of nothingness around us. "What'd you bring us here for, to _kill us?_! Bury our bodies in a place no one could find it?"

I was already out of the car before he'd finished speaking, forming a rectangle with the thumbs and index fingers of both of my hands and framing first the sun, then the grass plains and how the sun's rays at this time of day affected their coloration.

"Tweek's right. Jesus Christ, man, I knew Craig was going to do us in one day, but I didn't think we'd go like this," I heard Clyde mutter from inside when Token opened his door and followed me out

"You two need to chill out," Token said. "Craig already told us we're here filming. God damn."

"Oh yeah?" Clyde stepped out of the car too, but not before pulling the lever on the side the driver's seat that opened up the trunk. He ran over to it and pulled something out. "Then what's this long thin crowbar-like murder weapon Craig's stowed away in the back, huh?"

"That is my tripod, you doofus," I said. "And I would never beat you to death with that, don't you know how much damage that can do to it? Now go set it up over here."

He did as he was told, but, just as I would suspect from him, did it completely wrong so that when I went to go attach and adjust my camera on top of it, I had to move the thing around a few dozen times just to get it at the right spot and angle I needed it at.

"Now," I said when that was done, "who wants the honor of being my zombie?"

The three of them—Tweek had finally made it out of the car as well—remained where they were standing.

"Don't all of you jump at it at once."

The deciding factor, then, was a matter of Nose Goes, as initiated by Clyde, and the lucky winner ended up being Tweek. It'd taken him a few seconds to realize what was going on when Clyde and Token both placed their fingers against their respective noses, and in his shriek and scramble to follow suit, he'd accidentally smacked himself in the face.

I told him not to worry about it ("if you're bleeding, I can use that,"), then led him back to the car where I lent him the stash of ratted, disheveled, torn-up clothes I had stowed away in there. It was a fight to get him to wear them, since he kept protesting that horrible things would happen if he did himself up like this, but he eventually shoved them on. Also hidden in the trunk was my zombie make-up kit: old cosmetics I'd taken from my mom, paint, premade prosthetics, putty, cranberry-flavored fake blood, tons of things I'd used before and was practically a pro at using now. Clyde and Token assisted me in the makeover, with Tweek squirming under all the application, and after about a half an hour, we'd gotten him to look as convincing as was pleasing to me.

There was nothing else left to do, then, but film.

I stood a couple of yards away from the camera, with Tweek next to me, and demonstrated about four or five times exactly what I wanted to do, which was walked a crooked line directly in the camera shot. His arms were to be a certain angle, his legs were to drag a specific way, everything had to be precise. I made the necessary moaning sounds that I expected out of him, even explained to him the exact manner in which I wanted his jaw to hang open.

He listened and watched attentively, but with his fingers twisting about in front of him and a nervous look on his face.

"No pressure, dude, you'll be fine," I assured him, patting him on the shoulder before I raced back to crouch behind my camera. I counted him down with my fingers then pointed at him, watching as he ambled forward shakily, tripping over the uneven ground and almost stumbling several times.

This would be the first of about thirty or so takes I would make him do.

It wasn't even so much that he was doing it wrong. Sometimes I'd change the camera angle or position or setting or tell him something different to do. Fortunately I'm a patient guy, because you seriously cannot rush art.

"Ah, God, I'm going to screw it up again, why even _bother_!" he'd yelled after maybe the thirty-first run-through. He had his hands twisted through his hair, tugging at huge chunks of strands in a way that looked incredibly painful. I'd had to rush forward and get him to stop, reminding him that he was doing fine and most directors film same scenes over and over hundreds of times just to get it right.

When it seemed hopeless that he would be able to get through another take without freaking out, I offered that we take a break. Token and Clyde had long since wandered off after realizing that they served no purpose being here, so it was just the two of us.

"Maybe you should have just had Clyde be your zombie," Tweek whined to himself when we eased ourselves to the ground and leaned against the car doors of Clyde's car.

"You say that like he wouldn't have screwed up about a thousand times himself. I want to get this done _before_ the sun goes down, jeez Tweek."

He grinned a little, the smile cracking some of fake blood that had cake along the corner of his lips. I stared at him a few seconds longer, admiring the work we'd done on him: the pasty white of his skin, the dark sunken look of his eyes, what was meant to be rotting flesh along his cheekbones. It wasn't professional by any stretch, but it was certainly more fearsome than some Halloween costume. I was rather proud of the little zombie I'd created, but it was amazing how easily the illusion was shattered when he smiled.

"Plus," I added, "you do the zombie thing way cuter, you've got to admit."

Token and Clyde had returned at this point, which fortunately meant that the two of us only had to sit in the awkward and embarrassing silence that had followed my statement for a very brief moment.

"Dude," Clyde said when we were within earshot, "me and Token found a car out there, a few yards that way." He pointed in a direction somewhere behind him.

I wasn't particularly interested in that, even as Token and Clyde insisted we come see for ourselves. Tweek was convinced there really was an axe-murderer on the loose and we'd found his abandoned car, that there was probably a body inside, so _he_ was obviously opposed. At this point, then, it seemed like a good time to call it a day, but then Token quickly added, "it looks pretty beat-up, man, you could probably fit it into the background of a shot."

A prop I didn't have to build or paint myself? Well, Token certainly knew exactly how to win my heart. I immediately packed up my equipment and, amid Tweek's fevered protests, allowed Token and Clyde to lead us back to where they'd wandered off to earlier.

We stomped across the plains for about ten minutes when, lo and behold, there it was, hidden amid a patch of particularly tall grass. It wasn't as run-down as Token led me to believe. The paint was chipping, it was covered in dust, weeds were twisting their way around the slightly flattened tires, one of the windows was broken, and it looked moderately old. But it wasn't good enough. Not for me.

"Well, that was a waste of time," I mumbled, ready to turn around and leave.

"I wonder what it's doing here," Token said.

"Wonder if it still _runs_," Clyde added, stepping toward it. He would be interested in old piece of junk vehicles, considering he _owned_ one.

Tweek, who was keeping his distance, cried out in alarm.

"Relax, Tweek, the trunk was open when we got here and the only thing in there was a spare tire and a jug of gas. No dead bodies."

Clyde ran his hands tentatively along the side of the car, before hooking his hand under the handle and tugging on it. The door didn't budge open, so he carefully reached his arm through the broken window and pulled up on the lock. He eventually got inside, sliding onto the moth-eaten seat, the fabric of the car's ceiling hanging so low it brushed against the top of his head. He inspected all around the front seat, under the steering wheel, and inside the glove compartment

"Well?" Token called.

"No key." What did this fool expect. Seriously. "None of you happen to know how to hot wire a car, do you?"

It had been sarcasm, really, we could all hear the trace of a chuckle in his voice when he'd said it. No one was supposed to respond.

Then we heard a small, "uh, I…do," coming from where Tweek was standing, and we all whirled around to stare at him.

"You're serious, man?"

"_Why_."

"No way!"

"Uh, yes. I just do."

"I don't believe you, prove it!" Clyde insisted.

"What! No, I _can't_, I really shouldn't—!"

"Dude, you can't announce that you can hot wire cars and then not demonstrate, come _on_." Clyde had already ran out of the car and straight at Tweek, dragging the kid around the wrist back to where he'd come from. Tweek protested loudly, trying to wiggle out of Clyde's grip, but once they reached the vehicle, he stopped fighting, and gazed down at it curiously.

Tweek stood like that for a long moment, then, with a glance back at the three of us, crouched down under the steering wheel and went to work.

It had taken no longer than five minutes when suddenly, with a slight cough and a hiccup, the thing came to life, its engine purring at a low growl. Tweek reappeared from under the dashboard just to see us staring at him and the car in awe.

"You weren't joking," Clyde breathed, racing past him and sliding back into the driver's seat.

"Why would I joke about something like that?"

"The tank's almost empty, but, damn dude, this thing runs!" Clyde stared at us with wide, excited eyes. "Get in, let's test it out!"

As per usual, I flatly denied, Tweek loudly objected, and Token shrugged, before ambling over. Of course, once Token's in, I have to assume that the situation is under control, roll my eyes, and follow suit. Tweek, not wanting to be left alone outside, reluctantly joined us.

Once we were all in, Clyde put down the parking brake, put the car in drive, then gently placed his foot against the pedal, easing the car forward. It rolled, and we were all visibly surprised, although there was no real reason to be so. The thing lumbered forward, the engine sputtering every so often and the uneven ground beneath its tires creating a very bumpy ride.

When it appeared that it was not going to blow up any time soon, Clyde got excited and suddenly stamped his foot down hard, and the machine shot forward, racing across the plain at a highly accelerated speed. We all screamed at the same time, gripping whatever was within hands-reach. The rocky and hilly ground we drove over, combined with the speed we were going at, caused the car to constantly leap high into the air, making it so that we were hitting our heads against the ceiling every second or so. Clyde had also decided he wanted to make a sharp turn every chance he got, so we, who hadn't thought to buckle our seatbelts, were slamming into the sides of the car and into each other rather painfully.

I was sitting in the back with Tweek, meaning there was little I could do to control Clyde from back here, so I had to resort to grabbing at his arm when the car wasn't lurching in random directions and yell over Tweek's screaming and the wind blasting through the windows, "_SLOW THE FUCK DOWN_!"

Clyde either couldn't hear me or chose to ignore me (and I would bet my money on the latter), so really, we all had no choice but to subject ourselves to Clyde's borderline insanity as he continued to push the car's horsepower all over the grass plains.

Where we could do nothing, however, Mother Nature more than made up for, and it was she that put a stop to Clyde's lunacy.

Without warning, the car took a sudden dip and came to an abrupt and crashing stop, propelling us all forward so that we slammed into whatever was in front of us (the front seats for us in the back, the dashboard for the two in the front). The collision had knocked the wind out of me for a second and there was a long moment where the remaining three of us could not stop screaming.

When the adrenaline had left us and we realized we had stopped moving, Clyde, out of breath and shaken, hoarsely demanded to no one in particular, "what did we _hit?" _

"Judging by the angle of the car," Token muttered, his voice quavering a little, "I believe we hit a ditch."

"Motherfucker," Clyde swore, though not angrily, more out of surprise. "Are you guys okay back there?"

"We hit a fucking _ditch_, you retard, how okay do you think we are?" I growled. We were fine, though, just a little sore.

Tweek was still too shocked to say anything, but he nodded.

We all took a few minutes to pause, take deep breaths, and relax before exiting the vehicle. Once we were out, Clyde immediately began stretching his arms high to the sky, and he was already grinning again. "Well! That was fun."

There is no word in creation to describe the sort of white-hot anger that swelled in me at that moment.

"Clyde." I kept my voice steady. My friends are quite familiar with this as my rage voice. "You could have killed us. You try and pull something like that again and I will make sure it comes true for you."

"Oh my God, Craig, calm down. We _didn't_ die, did we?"

"I don't think even at that point you would be using your brain. With your dying breath, you'd declare to the world that your biggest regret was never getting the chance to eat a nine pound burrito."

"For your fucking information, they probably have nine pound burritos in heaven, so, no, I wouldn't be especially worried about that."

I grabbed the bridge of my nose, wondering what exactly I did to deserve this much idiocy in my life.

"To be honest," Token said shyly, "and it sounds kind of lame, but I think my biggest regret if we'd died back there was not living long enough to take Red to the dance."

"Wow, I think I threw up in my mouth a little," I said.

"Oh, shut up, Craig, that was cute," Clyde said. "You're just mad jelly because you don't have a girl to go with."

"May I remind you that I turned Red down in the first place so she could go with Token? And you're one to talk about not going with a girl, Mrs. Kevin Stoley."

"Whatever, _we're_ going to be having fun next Saturday night while _you're_ at home watching some video you shot of a plastic bag, and then we'll see who's pathetic. Bee-tee-dubs, bro, it will be you."

Ever a fan of dramatic exits, Clyde spun around, gesturing with a nod of his head for Token to follow, and stalked off. Token merely offered me a small smile and a shrug, then caught up with Clyde, who began talking about the dance loud enough for Tweek and I to hear as we trailed farther behind.

"Those guys are so fucking lame," I mumbled.

Tweek didn't respond right away, so I glanced at him, expecting some sign of agreement. He was staring at their backs, too, but not with the same mix of loathing and irritation like I had.

I nudged him. "Right?"

The contact jolted him out of his reverie.

"Yeah," he muttered quietly. "Lame…"

Oh, shit.

The tone of voice was peculiar in and of itself, though I very well could have been overanalyzing it. No, it was the combination of that and the look on his face as he said it. There was no doubt.

He wanted to go.

It took me a few seconds before I found the words to finally ask him, "…are _you_ going?"

"What?" He stared at me in alarm. "No, of course I'm not!"

"But you _want_ to go."

"Huh? What the hell gave you that idea? N-no _way_!"

I felt a rush of heat flood my cheeks. Oh yeah. He definitely wanted to go.

"Way to get over-defensive. You're a shit liar."

He twitched, his fingers twisting around each other and tugging at his tattered shirt hems, and made one of his weird little noises before falling silent. That was more or less an admission.

That was the difference, I realized, between this guy and I, a difference I'd come to understand over the course of how many weeks I'd observed him.

Him: afraid of everything, doesn't trust shit, _thought_ he was happier staying away from every little thing that looked unsafe. But deep down, oh _way_ deep down, he was curious. Of course he was, it's natural. Even if he didn't know it, he was at least the tiniest bit curious. The kind of curious that made him want to try things, things he'd never dream of doing, things that were terrifying, things that it was much easier to watch others do. He was just too afraid to admit it. It was a whole lot safer to just make up reasons why every little damn thing was dangerous and just leave it at that.

Me, on the other hand…I'm not afraid of anything. Nothing scares me. _Nothing_, and there's no reason to be afraid of anything, because what exactly do I have to gain bothering myself with an emotion like fear? I'm just not curious. I don't care. I don't want to know what it feels like to do _anything_ because I'm so sure I've got a handle on everything and I know just how the world works and exactly how every little thing will end like. Nothing was worth the kind of strain that accompanied curiosity.

"Let's go, then." The words flew out of me before I knew what I was saying.

He flinched slightly, blinking up at me. "What? Go where?" This was exactly what I was asking myself.

"To prom, stupid. You and me."

In the long minute following that he took to process that, I briefly considered taking back what I had said.

"Why?" he finally cried, his voice a high octave. "I told you I didn't want to go!"

"Yes, you do."

"_You're_ the one who said it was stupid! You were just saying a second ago that you thought it was lame!"

"Changed my mind. Come with me."

"God—What…That's…that's _way_ too much pressure!"

"No it isn't."

"How is it _not_ too much pressure? We'll have to…to dress up and we'll need money and we'll have to learn how to _dance_ and we have to get _dates_, man."

"Whatever, dressing up is nothing. I have an old tux I used once for a funeral. You can wear one of my sister's dresses." I could see his face beginning to pull into his angry scowl so I had to wear a grin and deliver a soft punch to the shoulder that said I was kidding. I really was kidding too, except for the sick part of me that wasn't_._ "All we need is money for a ticket. That's no big. I can pay for yours since I have a job. I don't know how to dance, so you're going to have to teach me that part."

"I don't know how to dance, either!"

"Then we'll both look stupid together."

He walked next to me quietly, the fear slowly dissipating off his face as he started to seriously consider what I was saying. A surge of joy swelled in the bottom of my stomach, but I kept my face passive.

"…and dates? S-should I ask someone, then?"

"No," I blurted. What I had really wanted to do was yell the word, though, and I actually had to bite my tongue back to keep myself from doing it.

"No?" he shrieked, the trepidation flooding his eyes again. "Dude, if we show up alone, _everyone_ is going to think we're lame and they'll laugh at us and kick our asses and _shun us _and we'll have to fucking _run away_ and go join the circus or something and God, I just—I don't want to join the circus, Craig!"

"That's not going to happen because we're not going _alone_, we're going together. That's what Clyde and Kevin are doing. Friends go together to prom all the time." I failed to mention that this was bullshit. I failed to mention that only girls go to prom stag with friends without it being totally weird. I failed to mention that only guys like Kip Drordy show up to prom without dates. I failed to mention that I didn't want to go as friends; I wanted us to go as dates.

I especially failed to mention that even if we showed up just the two of us and, for whatever bizarre reason, everything Tweek said a moment ago, every crazy little thing about us getting beat up and being forced to run away, if it all that came true, I wouldn't mind. I would take the abuse and I would be ostracized from everyone I knew and I would run away and I would join the goddamn circus, even though I fucking hate clowns. I'd do all that shit if it meant I got to do it all with him. Through his rambling, never once did I really hear the words "shun", "run away", or "circus". All I heard was "us" and "our" and "we", and it suddenly sounded like the most wonderful thing I'd ever heard.

There was this line from this movie I watched. A zombie movie, actually, that said, "don't let them get too close to you. It makes it harder to pull the trigger." It was of course referring to people in the world of the movie, and the idea that one day they could possibly turn zombie, and you need to detach yourself from emotions if you want to be able to defend yourself. The way it's delivered is always funny to me: it's a man uttering it to a neighbor, right in front of his wife. But it's true, y'know. I think it's true for me, anyway. I doubt zombies will be a problem in my near future, but detachment is always right around the corner.

"Okay," Tweek said, smiling slightly. "Okay, let's go."

And then I was smiling, too.


	9. Hesitation

_A/N: I feel like I should warn everyone that this chapter is 34K words. It's long. Please don't read it in one sitting. I'm planning on editing this story later to shorten all the chapters, but, until then...34K words. _

_the story has been getting some lovely pretty fanart ;u; omg you guys seriously it's beyond my wildest dreams and I appreciate it all MORE THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE. if anyone wants to look at most of them, they're on the Aisle 10 tag on my tumblr (there is a link to that in my profile) AND YEAH if you want to draw fanart, you don't have ask ;u; it makes me really happy every time someone does so yeah link me link me :D_

_also this entire chapter is dedicated to my best friend Melissa because she's been putting up with me and my south park fancraziness since we were both in the seventh grade and fucking hell SHE STILL SUPPORTS ME IN THE TERRIBLE THINGS I DO HERE IN THIS FANDOM so yes I love her so much and a billion things in this story are like inside jokes with her and most of this chapter would not be possible if not for her input so hooray!_

* * *

As the four of us continued our walk back to the car, I realized that maybe my decision to ask Tweek to go with me to the dance hadn't been as well thought-out as it probably should have been. For one thing, I'd overlooked the fact that this wasn't information I could easily keep just between the two of us. More specifically, it wasn't information that I could easily keep hidden from our two friends walking in front of us.

I stared at the backs of their shirts as this thought occurred to me, imaging the sort of reaction they would have were they to learn just what had taken place behind them a few minutes ago: the laughing, the jeering, the merciless teasing that would continue to persist months after all of this was over…

I held out my hand to stop Tweek.

"Maybe we should keep this a secret from Token and Clyde," I said quietly, stopping as well.

"Keep what a secret?"

"That I asked you to _you-know-what_ and that we're actually going."

"What? Why?"

"_Because _I already made a big deal about not going in the first place, and it's going to be really annoying for them to find out."

"Well, that's not my problem!"

"You heartless bastard."

"You're one to talk," he scoffed, folding his arms.

"Please, just keep it a secret for a little bit." I don't like to beg because begging means I give too much of a damn, but I did, and I'm ashamed to admit it. However, with a few more convincing words on my part, he finally (albeit reluctantly) nodded, and that made it worth it.

"What's taking you two so long?" Token called over his shoulder as we began walking again to catch up to them.

I was just about to respond when Tweek suddenly blurted, "Craig and I are going to the dance!"

Or, at least, he made it as far as, "Craig and I are going—" before I frantically clamped my hand over his mouth and pulled him to me, feeling him wriggling around spastically in my grasp but not letting go.

"What did he say?" Clyde asked, frowning as both he and Token stopped to turn and stare at us.

"Nothing," I said quickly. "He didn't say anything."

"It sounded like he said you guys were going somewhere."

"He said that? Oh, yes, he meant that we're going…crazy with this long walk back to the car, yup, oh, goddammit Clyde why did you have to crash in a ditch that was another two yards out of our way."

If I hadn't been the one who said it I would not have bought that, but I watched in relief as they exchanged a glance, then, shrugging, kept walking forward.

Tweek was now clawing at my hand on his face, and after I gave him a very stern look, I released him.

"Wow, Tweek," I snapped bitterly, "you can keep your entire life story a mystery from me, but you can't keep _that_ a goddamn secret?"

"You didn't let me finish! How do you know I was even going to say that?"

"I…" Well, I didn't have an answer for that one.

"You don't trust me!"

"I just have a lot of priorities with keeping my dignity around those two."

"Going to the _prom_"—I shushed him loudly and he rolled his eyes—"I mean, the you-know-what is not going to damage your dignity. You're overreacting!"

Perhaps deep down the rational part of me agreed with him, but that wasn't the part of me that was in control right now. Therefore, I kept trying to convince him I wasn't overreacting, that I was reacting just the right amount and it was perfectly reasonable for me to be bothered about this. When we'd all reached the car and climbed in, I'd sat in the back with him and the two of us maintained furrowed and highly vague whispers about it in the backseat for the duration of the ride, all up until we dropped him off at his house.

"Tweek, don't. Just don't."

"Why'd you _ask_ if I can't even say anything!"

"Because—it's complicated."

"You're not making _any_ sense."

I groaned. "Why do you have to be so fucking frustrating."

"If I'm so fucking frustrating then you can just do this with someone else!"

"No!"

He stared at me with wide eyes, a little startled by my outburst. Even Token and Clyde had looked up at the same time to steal a glance at us in the rearview mirror. I chose to wait a few minutes for them to go back to ignoring us before I continued.

"I mean. I want to do this with you, okay, but I want to…be low-key about it."

"It's not like we're going on a fucking da—"

"Don't say that word."

"Well, we're not!"

"I know. I know, I know." I took a deep breath. "I know."

"What the fuck are you even saying?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Why are you getting so upset?"

"You're being way too vague, man, it's pissing me off!"

"It wouldn't be a normal day if I didn't do that at least once, now would it?"

That probably wasn't the best way to respond to his previous statement because it only seemed to intensify his irritation. Fortunately, we'd made it to his house at this point, so he couldn't start yelling at me about it. Instead, he said nothing and shoved his way out of the car with a huff.

While I'd never gotten an official confirmation of his silence regarding the prom thing, my actual biggest lost of this whole situation was that I'd been so distracted by our argument that I didn't really get a good look at his house when we'd pulled up to it. That sounds kind of creepy, but this was actually the official first time I'd been in front of it, and I'd spent a lot of daydream time wondering what his house looked like. I wondered a lot of stupid insignificant details about this kid. The elements that composed his existence were strangely fascinating to me, from what kind of gum he chewed to the habits of his morning wake-up routine. I just wanted to _know,_ feeling like I wouldn't be disappointed by the information I might discover.

At the beginning of this day, I'd been hoping to finally cross "see his house" off my list, and, I mean, I looked at it, yeah, but that was not nearly enough time for a thorough analysis, and we drove away from the place with me feeling very unsatisfied.

Furthermore, Tweek was now slightly mad again. He hadn't even said goodbye to me, and I kind of love it when he says goodbye because always smiles when he does. He's got a goodbye smile, I swear to god, just like he's got a good morning smile and "oh Craig you made a funny joke allow me to reward your impeccable wit" smile. I feed upon these like I'm collecting points in a video game, and I'd just missed out on one.

Even when we'd driven away, though, and I was racking up my loses, I still attempted to rationalize to myself that my decision to keep quiet on the issue was a good one. I guess my rational bits were still trying to tell me that I _was_ overreacting, and it was almost like Tweek was still in the car to argue with me the way I kept bouncing back and forth on how I felt.

I was convinced for the most part that it was a good idea to not tell anyone, but then I started to really think about prom itself, and I realized that this was actually my first high school dance. I mean, I went to Sadie Hawkins freshman year, but that _hardly_ counts. The theme was superhero, and we all showed up at our gym in jeans and capes and eye masks (except for a handful, like Clyde, who insisted on being fully decked out as a chubby Flash or Kevin, who was a Stormtrooper). Prom is a little more legit, at least as far as dances go, and I didn't know the first thing about what I was supposed to do. I needed clothes, that's all I figured. I didn't even know where to buy tickets, where the fucking event was located, what kind of _etiquette_ was demanded of me, rituals, traditions, animal sacrifices, anything.

I wrestled with the idea for a long time before I came to a consensus about it. My friends are used to me sitting quietly during car rides (or during anything, really), so my silence was nothing out of the ordinary. When I finally came to a decision, though, realizing that I actually really couldn't go through this prom thing alone, I did something they, on about seven levels, didn't expect from me.

Clyde's mix tape was currently playing Abba, and the two of them were in the middle of belting the lyrics to "Mamma Mia", when I suddenly blurted, "I'm going to the prom, and I'm taking Tweek with me."

It was lucky that no one else happened to be on the road we were on because Clyde suddenly jerked the wheel all the way to the right, bringing the car to a screeching halt at the side of the street.

They both simultaneously wheeled around in their seats to stare at me in the backseat with wide, horrified eyes.

"_Can you repeat that?"_ Clyde finally dared to ask, his right eye twitching slightly.

"I'm going to the dance."

He made a strangled sound in the back of his throat.

"_What_?" Token choked out.

I had expected this reaction, and was willing to repeat my words as often as they requested of me until it made it through to them. I opened my mouth to do so, but Clyde quickly interjected.

"Did we _miss_ out on the alien abduction out in the field back there? Who are you and what have you done with Craig?"

"I'm serious, Clyde."

"I don't believe it," Token said. "Craig motherfucking Tucker? Going to _the_ junior prom?"

"The same Craig who said he'd rather have his skin peeled off than be caught dead there?" Clyde continued.

"The same Craig who said he'd rather have his testicles removed _again_?" Token blurted.

"The same Craig who hates everyone?"

"And everything?"

"Are you guys done yet?" I said, rolling my eyes.

"No, wait, I'm serious," Token said. "Is this a joke or something, dude?"

"Or an act of _terrorism_," Clyde muttered sharply. "You going to blow everyone up at the dance? Get us all in one room and then light the place on fire?"

"Wow, okay, that takes way more energy and expenses than I'd like to spend on a bunch of people I don't care about."

"Then _why_?"

"Because I just want to, okay? What's the big deal?"

"You said it was stupid! You've been making fun of us every time we brought it up!"

"I just—" Clyde here seemed to be suffering the most from his confusion. He kept waving his hands around emphatically every time he spoke, and he was constantly brushing hair off his forehead like some nervous tick. "I don't get why you would change your mind for no reason, there's gotta be a catch—" He stopped, eyes widening slightly. I could see the transformation in his face: his brain was doing overtime, realization was slowly dawning on him.

Something clicked for Clyde and he turned his head slowly to stare at me, and I mean _really_ stare at me. "Did you say you're taking Tweek with you?"

I'd forgot I'd mentioned that little detail.

"Uh."

Clyde slapped both hands down against the steering wheel before using the heel of his palm to bonk himself on the forehead. "That's it then, duh! That's the _only_ explanation." When he looked at me again, he was grinning. "When you two get married, can I be your best man?"

Token opened his mouth next, and I had expected him to rush to my aid here, but instead he said, "excuse you, _I'm_ best man."

"Craig and I have been friends longer, Token."

"Longer by like a few months!"

"Still longer!"

"I was the first person Craig told that he likes—"

I shot him a look.

"…that he likes me more."

Clyde gasped, then whipped around to shoot me an accusatory look. "You didn't!"

"I don't even know why you're arguing about this."

"No, Craig," Clyde said, frowning. "I'm done with this playing dumb bullshit. You better tell me right now, _to my face_, what exactly is up with you."

I maintained my poker face. "Nothing is up."

When Clyde let out an aggravated groan, Token shook his head and turned to me, saying, "dude, what's the point? You might as well tell him."

Clyde stared at Token. "What."

"Token!" I snapped.

"Even _Token_ knows?" Clyde cried, and I could hear the trace of a sob in there.

"He doesn't know _anything_. There isn't anything to know."

"Why can't you just tell me?" Clyde continued. "I thought we were _bros_, man. We've shared toothbrushes, you know! Pairs of boxers! You let me watch your hamster, you can't tell me that didn't mean anything!"

"First of all, we only shared those things because you crashed at my place unannounced and unprepared; second of all, _guinea pig_, which you almost killed; and thirdly, there is _nothing_ to tell."

"Are you afraid I'll make fun of you? I won't, I swear. I mean, I would have, but you're making this difficult, so I won't."

I grunted, realizing that no amount of denial on my part would get him off my back.

"I'm not starting this car back up until you tell me!"

"I don't care. I'll walk home."

"Don't do that!" He suddenly sunk down in his chair so that his mouth was partly concealed by his seat as he continued to gaze with sad eyes at me in the backseat. He looked like a pathetic, timid rabbit backing down and retreating into its hole. "It's not like it's that much of a surprise anyway, dude. It's pretty obvious."

"Then why do I have to tell you."

"Because we're best friends and I want to hear you say it. You know, so I know you trust me."

I crossed my arms, glaring out the window and slumping into my seat, but didn't respond.

"Craig…" Token chided gently.

I persisted in my silence.

"Come on, dude, it's like three words. You can do it," Clyde added.

Sighing, I finally said, "I _can't_."

"What do you mean you can't?"

"Can't say it."

"You know, he didn't even really tell me, either. He just kind of vaguely implied it," Token said.

Clyde frowned and pouted at this, but after a moment's thought, he lit up instantly. "What if I _ask_ you?" Without waiting for any indication on my part that I was okay with this proposition, he continued to say, "Craig, do you have a crush on Tweek?"

Three minutes of silence passed, and I was impressed by the patience my two friends possessed, because neither of them said a word and at one point they stopped staring at me and quietly waited in the front seat while I mulled over how to respond to this.

I weighed all my options at this point. The cons of telling Clyde would be that he would probably mock me until the ends of my days, would potentially spread the word throughout the school, and would spend forever convincing our more impressionable friend Tweek that he, Clyde, would be the most preferred choice for best man at our theoretical wedding. The pros, however, included not having to tiptoe around this issue anymore, reaffirming and cementing my decision in keeping Clyde as my closest friend, and the ability to enlist his help in all areas of expertise Token could not assist in.

Reasoning that peer mockery and reputation were ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of the cosmos, the pros began to sound vastly more appealing.

I opened my mouth, began to say, "ye—" then shut my lips immediately without finishing the word.

Token and Clyde had perked up at the sound, but deflated when I bailed halfway through.

Clyde turned around in his seat again, staring at me with encouragement in his eyes. "Just nod your head if you want to say yes!"

So I shut my eyes and did so. It was a curt nod, more like a jerk of my head, and I quickly buried my face in my hands the moment I'd completed the action.

Clyde's reaction was nothing short of what I expected out of him.

"Yes! I knew it, I _knew it_!" The car began rocking, so I assumed he was dancing. "Didn't I tell you? Ever since you saw him at the store, I _knew it_!"

"Yeah, Clyde, you're a real Sherlock Holmes," Token said, chuckling slightly. "Satisfied?"

"Hell yeah, I am!"

It wasn't until the car's engine revved back on and I was sure that Clyde would be too focused on the road to look at me that I removed my face from my hands and glanced out the window.

So that was it. Now Clyde was a member of my secret society, and after a few minutes of him continuing to cheer in triumph and honk his horn a couple times, I finally spoke again to tell him the terms and conditions of being apart of such a secret society. Namely that he only got to join because I needed his help and I trusted him, and that under no circumstance should this secret leave our triangle.

"I'll kill you, Clyde. I really will."

"I'm not going to tell anyone!"

I made him swear on everything he loves: on his porn collection, on Bonnie, on his Dutch mother and her secret taco meat flavoring ingredients. When he begrudgingly agreed and even reluctantly complied with crossing his hands over his heart and all other such playground rituals of secrecy, I finally confided why exactly I had needed to tell them I was going to the prom in the first place.

I told them all my problems, my questions of when and where and how and what in regards to just about everything, and after I laid all my issues on the table, they both assured me that they'd help me, that they had everything covered, and that I shouldn't worry about a thing.

How they had planned to do this didn't become immediately clear, not until I ran into Kevin Stoley in the hallway Monday afternoon on the way to my fourth period anatomy class.

"Hey, Craig," he'd said to me as I passed him by the water fountain. I frowned but nodded briefly, continuing on my way before he added, "I heard you're going to prom after all."

I halted in my steps, whirling around and staring at him with wide eyes. "What did you say?"

"I said I heard you're—!" he practically _shouted_ before I rushed forward and slapped a hand over his mouth.

"Not so fucking _loud_," I snapped, shooting furtive glances at the kids walking past us. "Why don't you just paint it on a fucking banner and string it across the front of the school?"

"Sorry," he mumbled when I released him. "But, um, what changed your mind, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Never mind that. How did you know about this?"

"Clyde told me."

Of course he did. I suppose that was my fault. I hadn't been very specific in _which_ part of the information I'd divulged on Saturday had been a secret. It was, in fact, _everything_ I told them that was supposed to be a secret, but Clyde had seen a loophole in my failure to spell that out.

"What else do you know?" I demanded

"Nothing, I swear!" The poor kid shrunk smaller than he already was, so I backed off. "But, hey, did you want a discount on, um, your boutonniere? Clyde told me you were planning on getting one, but, uh, you do know the girl gets it for the boy, right? You're sure you don't want any _corsages_?"

With this remark, it became apparent to me what exactly was the extent of my friends' promised help: hook me up with deals on prom swag. For instance, Kevin's mom owned the flower shop in South Park, which I thought was pretty convenient in this situation. I predicted that Clyde was probably going to get his dad to loan me a pair of shoes for the night. I wasn't sure where the rest of everything else was going to come from, but Token's fabulous wealth probably had something to do with it.

It was a generous effort on their part to take care of me like this, so my irritation with Kevin depleted substantially.

"Yeah, I know," I continued, answering his previous question. "I don't really have a date."

"So you're buying your own…?" The way he said made me think that this was a pathetic thing to do.

"It's for Tweek. We agreed to go if the other one would, so I figure it'd be appropriate."

"Oh." I braced myself for a slew of questions. "Right, Clyde told me about that, too. That's cool."

I was falling more in love with how nonintrusive or judgmental I was surprised to find this boy was; this was definitely not something I was used to with my friends.

"I can get it to you the night of, if that's okay," he continued. "You can pay me back whenever. That all you need, man?"

In fact, this entire exchange made me realize how much I underestimated how unbelievably genial this kid was. There was practically nothing about him that made him detestable, and it was a wonder I'd been such an ass to him for so long.

"Yeah, that's fine, just one green one is okay." I held up a fist. "Thanks a lot, dude."

He flinched at first, probably thinking I was going to hit him. When my hand didn't get any closer to him, he shyly produced his own fist, and bumped our knuckles, smiling slightly as he did. "No problem, man. Any time."

The rest of the day came and went, taking me straight past the rest of my school day and work all the way to eight o'clock that evening, and when my friends displayed no other signs of assistance, I assumed that Kevin was the most they could muster to help me.

It took up until 4:30 PM of Tuesday, for me to find out that Kevin Stoley hadn't even been half of their plan.

I was at work at the time, stocking aisle two with the baby food, when the store's bell dinged and I heard the approaching footsteps of a customer.

Clyde was at the counter, so though I automatically moved as if to turn around and find out who it was, I trusted that he would take care of it and didn't bother looking.

The footsteps continued, though, clacking their way across linoleum, getting louder and louder until I realized they were coming right toward me. It'd been too late for me to run away or react before they stopped right next to me, and just before I managed to look up, I was beaten to the punch by a familiar feminine voice.

"Tucker."

It was Red. I didn't have to look up to know it was her. She's got a voice that's distinct like no other. The tone she was using, however, was a bit strange. I hadn't heard her speak like that to me in years.

"We haven't spoken in weeks and now we're on a last name basis?" I muttered, bending over to grab five jars of mushed bananas from the crate by my feet.

"Oh, be quiet. Like you even care."

That too was a curious response. I was expecting an apology and a giggle.

"I take it you're over me," I said.

"I've _been_ over you. And it's about time. What a waste of four years I'll never get back."

"Wonderful. Now I can stop pretending to be nice to you."

"And I can stop kissing your ass. Works out for the both of us, doesn't it?"

This attitude was not foreign for Red. She's actually about as fiery as her nickname would suggest. In fact, a better way to put it is that she's a tough fucking bitch, and she has been since we were little kids, to boys and girls. Pre-seventh grade, when she wasn't being snarky and venomous to the other girls in our class, I was at the brunt of all this hostility, which explains why I wasn't completely unfamiliar with the way she was treating me now.

It's not because I was special or chosen or anything that she decided to pick on me, but our dads are kind of best friends, so we end up having to hang out more than I would like. It's almost like how Token's family and my family do everything together, but perhaps not quite as involved, since our dads are completely capable of doing things by themselves. We did end up at a lot of the same parties and events, got paired up for way too many school projects, and she was Bea's babysitter for awhile when my sister was much younger. Also, my dad loves her. He is genuinely confounded by the fact that we aren't dating. You don't understand how mad he was that I didn't end up asking her to be my date to the prom. I seriously thought he was going to hit me for it.

Her personality never quite changed when we got older, but when puberty arrived in the seventh grade and brought all its hormones with it, she decided that she was done being a bitch to me. First, she completely ignored me, as many girls confused with their feelings will do, and that was fine with me. We weren't enemies so much as we were respected rivals or maybe angry friends, but I was not about to complain about any lack of harassment in my life. Halfway through eighth grade and all the way until spring of freshman year, however, she discovered a new tactic, which was to be really nice to me.

She was still the same girl to everyone else, but she was suddenly being extra sweet to me, and way more shy and reserved, too. She'd even bothered calling me _Craig_ instead of _Tucker_, which was probably the weirdest thing.

I'd gone with her to Sadies because she asked me and also because I half expected her to revert to her old self and punch me if I didn't. I had been Batman and she was Wonder Woman, and the whole thing had been super awkward because I didn't know how to function around her when she was in a state of infatuation with me. I only understood being an ass and getting bitch in return.

So of course I couldn't be her boyfriend after the fact, no matter how much she continued to be nice tco me all up until junior year. She'd felt too much like a close cousin or something for most of elementary school, and I wasn't super fond of this new nice girl front she'd put up to try and attract me.

It was kind of pleasant, in a nostalgic sort of way I suppose, to finally talk to the old Red after how many years of interacting with her evil twin.

"Loving the hostility, by the way," I said, stacking the jars on the shelf one by one. "I certainly missed your inner bitch."

"You can thank yourself for that, alright, because if you hadn't turned me down, I wouldn't have been cured of the disease that was my infatuation with your dumb ass."

"Oh, my God, don't be so fucking dramatic. I let you down kindly, didn't I? And I found you a better guy."

"Yeah, of course, which is exactly what I needed to let me know I was wasting my time with you."

"I could have told you that myself."

"But you didn't."

"Excuse me for being a fucking gentleman!"

She exhaled angrily. "You're still an ass."

"Tell me something I don't know."

Yes, this was the Red I remembered: nitpicking everything I did and blaming all the world's problems on me. Now that she was back, I was starting to miss the sweet lovesick one.

"Tell me," I continued, finally turning to actually look at her. "What the hell do you want anyw—whoa. Your, um, your hair."

By "hair," I was actually referring to the fact that half of her head was shaved, and the half that still had hair only had enough to reach below her chin. Red's hair is actually one thing that undergoes a lot of construction and pretty often, too. The longest it had ever been was to her ass, and that was freshman year. Since then, she's been styling it as crazily as possible: complex braids, high ponytails, weird shit sticking out of it, cutting it into various styles and lengths. The only thing she hadn't done was dye it, but its strikingly red color was what earned her her nickname in the first place, so that made sense.

This particular cut, however, was new.

I didn't want to be rude and just stare at her exposed scalp, although it was hard _not_ to, so I tried focusing my eyes on something else, on the lightning bolt earrings dangling from her ears, on the big orange headphones she had slung around her neck, on the rainbow assortment of jewelry wrapped halfway up her forearm, but it really was no use.

"What about it?" she demanded.

"You, uh, cut it again."

"Yeah, on _Saturday_. We've had church and class together, dillhole."

"I guess I, um, didn't notice it."

"Craig Tucker didn't notice something completely obvious, _there's_ a big surprise." She bonked my forehead with the ball of her palm. "Space cadet."

"_Spaceman_," I muttered under my breath.

"What did you say?"

"I said, isn't that a bit cold for our mountain weather?"

"I _have_ a beanie." And lo and behold, she pulled an indigo one out of her canvas messenger bag and tugged it loosely on over her head. It improved the look a little so that she actually looked kind of cute again, but I could not forget the sight of her scalp just a second ago.

"How's Token feel about that."

"He thinks it's sexy, a concept I'm sure you're not entirely familiar with."

"Oh, fuck _off_, a month ago I would have been your definition of sexy."

"A month ago I was suffering from the Bubonic Plague-equivalent of hormones."

"Yeah, okay, well, that'll look real nice in prom photos. I'm sure you're prepped for that too?"

"Excuse you, I have a bangin' dress to go with this do, don't you worry about me. In fact"—she suddenly reached out and grabbed the last jar in my hand and placed it on the shelf herself—"I'd be more worried about yourself, if I were you. Which brings me to why I'm here."

I suddenly bent over, reaching into the crate of baby food by my feet with the intention of replenishing my arms with two or three or five jars. I needed to be doing something, _anything_ that would keep me from making direct eye contact with her as she continued to speak on this issue. Red had other plans in mind, though, as she reached a hand out to grip my cheeks between her index finger and thumb, jerking my gaze over to stare at her.

"I heard you're going to prom."

Now I understood why she was being extra bitchy.

"Listen, I can explain—" I tried to say, though I don't think she understood me very well, since her hold on my face was causing my lips to pucker out, thus rendering my speech somewhat indecipherable.

"I though you said you _weren't_ going, Craig." Then, in her best impression of my voice, she continued, "'it's nothing against _you_, Red, honestly. I just don't want to go. Dances are lame.' Isn't that what you said?"

Swiping at her hand, I pulled back, wrenching my face free of her grasp. "It's all still true. Although I probably wouldn't have gone with you even if dances were the greatest pleasure on earth."

"That hurts," she said snidely, holding a hand over her heart. "I was a goddamn sweetheart to you."

"It was creepy."

"Look, _whatever_." She breathed out exasperatedly and tucked whatever long enough hair strands she had behind her ear. "I'm not even mad. You're a jackass; I've come to terms with that. You probably would have made a lousy date anyway."

"I went with you to _Sadies_, or don't you remember?"

"You hung out with your friends the whole night. You didn't even dance!"

"You didn't seemed bothered by it at the time!"

"That's because I was so infatuated with you that I was just happy you went with me at all."

"And I did! I did go with you!"

"After I bought your ticket, picked out your outfit, planned dinner, provided a ride."

"Is that my fault? I didn't even want to go with you then, but you kept offering me things."

She threw her hands up in the air. "God, you are hopeless. Well, I'm not going to let Tweek endure the same crap I did—"

"How did you—never mind, Tweek is not my _date_, there's a difference here."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Are you paying for his ticket?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"He's your date."

"Because he can't afford his own—"

"Date, I said. Don't argue with me." She chuckled derisively while I fumed with my inability to find an adequate way to counter retort. "Have you even bought the tickets yet, Craig?"

"No."

"Crappy date, yet again. You know how Token asked me to go with him? He serenaded me with his guitar outside of physics. He'd already bought the tickets long in advance, he was just looking for the right time to ask."

"I _know, _he_ told_ me, he's been planning that since freshman year. Unfortunately I cannot _be_ Token, although I'm sure the world would be a jollier place if that were so."

She scoffed. "Hasn't even bought the tickets yet…"

"I'm _going_ to—"

"Do you even know how much they cost? Where to buy them at? If there are even some left?"

I paused, staring at her. "Are there?"

"I don't know, _are_ there?"

"You're the fucking student council secretary, you tell me!"

She clicked her tongue reproachfully at me, suddenly reaching into her messenger bag and pulling out one long, blue rectangular slip of cardstock.

"Ah, ah, ah," she said, waving her right index finger at me while she held the ticket up in her left hand. "That's no way to speak to the girl who procured one of the last few remaining prom tickets with the intention of giving them to her date's best friend." She spared a glance at the ticket in her hand. "Did you know each ticket costs like _ninety bucks_ the week of prom? With my student council discount they only cost thirty."

"Just one? I needed two."

"So demanding. I'm doing you and your wallet a motherfucking favor." She wiggled the ticket. "This one is for Tweek."

"I need one too, y'know."

"I _know_. Relax," she said, annoyed. "Like I was about to say: Token told me how uncomfortable it makes you to know you're going to this of your own volition, so I hooked you up with an excuse _and_ a free ticket."

"What kind of excuse?"

"One that appeals to your inner cheapskate and dork. You'll find out all about that tomorrow."

I didn't like the way that sounded, and I think she could see that on my face.

"Don't worry about it, it's nothing bad. In fact, you're probably going to enjoy it."

(I actually did find out at about it the next day, just as she said. Wendy Testaburger had approached me in the hallway at school, and with the way she sped at me I thought I had done something to piss her off. That is, until she shoved a large clothe camera bag into my chest. She began spouting off instructions and regulations to me without explaining what was going on, and when I finally got in a word to ask, she frowned and said, "Red told me you wanted to film the dance for yearbook DVD."

At least that was going to make things bearable.

I would never give Red the satisfaction that she was right about me enjoying it, though.)

Red, not giving me further explanation at the time, instead dangled the ticket right in front of me. When I went to grab it, however, she quickly drew it out of my reach.

I fumed. "Are you going to give it to me or not?"

"Tell me I'm pretty."

"What?"

"Tell. Me. I'm. Pretty."

"Are you going to give me the tickets if I do?"

She cupped a hand over her ear. "I'm sorry, is that how they say, 'you're pretty,' in Jerkanese?"

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever. You're pre—"

"Wait. I want Donovan to be a witness for this. Clyde!"

I slapped a hand over my eyes, waiting as I heard that traitor trot his way over like an obedient dog.

"What's up, you guys? Ooh, you got Craig his prom ticket, Red, nice, thanks for that!"

She smiled, then turned to me. "Okay, Craig, say it."

"You're…" I grit my teeth, glaring at her. "You're pretty."

"And talented and smart and also say you're a lousy date and human being."

I sighed. "You're pretty and talented and smart, while I, on the other hand, am the scum of the earth." I snatched the ticket out of her hand while she beamed triumphantly, and Clyde guffawed next to her.

"I will _never_ get tired of watching you squirm," Clyde wheezed between his laughter.

"I hate both of you."

"Excuse you," Red said. "I just got you a discounted ticket, which I wouldn't have bothered with if Clyde and Token hadn't asked me."

"That part I appreciate, the rest of this has been sufficiently irritating."

I finally glanced down at the ticket in my hand. Noticing that it wasn't just a simple blue slip of cardstock, I realized that it was actually depicting a badly photoshopped image of a deep-sea ocean. It literally looked like the background picture on the ticket had been yanked off Google images while random pictures of starfish and clownfish were copy/pasted over using what must have been Microsoft Paint.

There were words on it, too. Besides the obvious "Admit One" and the date and time of the event, apparently this dance had, as I presumed every other dance did, its own title.

"Underwater Romance,'" I read aloud, raising my eyes to stare in disbelief at Clyde and Red. "Well, if I wasn't already super excited to go, that certainly sealed the deal."

"Dude, the titles are always dumb," Clyde said.

"_This_ dumb? Always?"

"Don't look at me, I'm not in charge of naming them," Red said defensively.

"Remind me again why people go to these things."

"God, calm down, the title is not important. They're fun, look where it's at."

I read the ticket again.

"The Downtown Aquarium." I stared up at Red. "Why."

"Why? Because it's pretty! They leave all the tanks on, it's _awesome_."

"The entire aquarium for our junior class, really. Our class has like two hundred people in it."

"It's what the council wanted."

"And how did the _council_ afford this."

"Oh, you know, fundraisers, loans, we may not have the most glamorous senior year…"

I scoffed.

"Look, it'll make for nice pictures, alright?" She paused. "Speaking of looking nice for pictures, what are you wearing?"

"What do you care?"

"I'm looking out for you, dummy. I want to make sure you're doing this right."

"Craig doesn't have a suit yet," Clyde interjected. I sent a glare his way.

"_What_?" Red said.

"He's exaggerating. I have one," I lied.

"You said it doesn't fit anymore," Clyde said.

"Clyde."

"You idiot! You didn't consider that you might need a new one?" Red said, narrowing her eyes at me.

"Well I wasn't planning on _going_ until just this weekend, so no. Besides, I don't need a new suit."

"Unless you can shrink yourself in three days, yes you do. You can't go to prom in a suit that's too small for you."

"I can't _afford_ that shit."

"Don't worry, I'm a beast at shopping cheaply, just stick with me."

"Why do you have to involve yourself? Since when is this your business anyway?"

"Since Token asked me to help you out."

So I was right. Token and Clyde _had_ asked these two to help me out. The thought of Clyde approaching Kevin to inquire about flower discounts was incredibly amusing to me, as was the idea of Token desperately begging Red to stop hating me long enough to hook me up with tickets. It was a ludicrous idea to think that my friends would do something like this for me, let alone that the other two would comply so easily.

And yet all four of them had done just that.

I had conflicted feelings about the idea of this much compassion coming to me from people for whom I reciprocated very little in return.

"Besides," Red continued, "who else is going to help you with this? Your _mommy_? These two? Token's suit was custom-made last October, and Clyde's mom bought his."

Clyde nodded. "Mine's got a hat!"

I sighed. "So what do you want to do? Take me shopping?"

"Why not?"

"When, pray tell, were you planning on doing this? This thing is this Saturday, and I work every day afterschool, which I'm not going to reschedule to buy some fucking clothes."

"You don't have work _Friday_."

I hadn't expected her to know that. Token must have told her, since Clyde shook his head when I looked at him, and I realized Token had been planning for her to help me _this_ way too.

"Isn't that cutting it a bit close?" I tried again, still clinging to the hope that she would eventually drop this whole thing.

She shrugged. "Better than nothing. In fact, skip school. We'll make it a whole day thing."

I was not particularly surprised that this was an instinctive suggestion for her, considering she skips school all the time. Her flair for cracking codes and passwords, as well as her high position in student government and thus close access to the school's mainframe computer, made it very easy for her to be gone a whole day and still appear on the system as if she had never left at all.

Where she fled off to was beyond me, but I was not about to find out.

"I'm not skipping _school_ to go shopping."

"What's the big deal? I'd think you'd leap at the chance to ditch."

"Not for some stupid reason."

"Uh," Clyde said, "this is coming from the same guy who made me and Token play hooky with him to work on his monster movie last year."

"The weather conditions were perfect that day, I _told_ you."

"If it's the homework you're worried about, man, you're only missing one day. You can catch up with that shit no problem."

"And if it's an attendance issue, I've got that covered, too," Red added with a grin, pantomiming typing on a keyboard.

When I didn't respond right away, if only because I could not come up with a good enough counterargument, she took that as an agreement and patted me on the shoulder, beaming.

"You won't regret this."

"No, Red, _no_."

Pinching my cheek painfully, she then spun around and headed for the door. "See you Friday morning!"

"Red!"

She left before I could protest any further.

I was hoping she was kidding. Not because I wanted to be in school or enjoyed being school or anything, because I don't. I don't even hate school, although there are less days where I enjoy it than there are days where I secretly hope that the whole place becomes a victim of arson. School in general is not worth any amount of concern or emotion on my part, whether relishing or abhorring. It was just something I did because I had to do it.

No, the problem was more that I actively dislike clothes shopping, as well as dislike breaking rules and getting caught, both of which involve way more trouble and effort than I'd like to willingly take part in. Risking the latter for the former was not worth the nuisance it would be of a trip to the principal, detention, and, most importantly, my parents.

I don't think I need to remind you of the restrictive measures my father takes to discipline me.

Just to be safe, then, and hopefully avoid whatever fiasco Red had planned for kidnapping me, I had my mom drop me off at school the Friday morning. I had theorized the possibility that Red might hijack the bus or something, so I didn't want to risk it.

However, as I walked down the front sidewalk of the school in the direction of the main doors, a car suddenly zoomed up and stopped abruptly right beside me.

It was Token's, and when the front passenger window slid down, Red, donning her large aviator sunglasses, leaned out on her arm and grinned up at me.

"Get in, loser."

I glanced up at the sky, groaning. "I said no, goddammit."

"Ah, I think a glance at the backseat might change your mind."

I was pretty much convinced that nothing she could possibly have back there would compel me to get in this vehicle, but, to humor her, I leaned forward and peeked in the backseat window. I had been wrong about this previous conjecture, though, because sitting inside, next to Clyde (for whom I momentarily spared a scathing glance) was Tweek, biting his fingers and staring anxiously back out at me.

"Why," I asked, directing this at Red.

"You're not the only one who needs clothes." She had already stepped out of the car and pushed her chair forward, gesturing for me to enter. When I didn't move right away, she added, "I already have you marked down in all your classes as present, you're fine."

It didn't appear that I had much of a choice, not with _him_ in there, so I sighed and, against my better judgment, complied with her wishes.

"Welcome," Token greeted once Red had reentered the car, and we pulled away from the curb.

"I'm surprised to see you," I mumbled to Tweek as I buckled my seatbelt.

"I didn't want to!" Tweek cried. "They just showed up at my house and kidnapped me!"

"Calm down, Tweek, it'll be fun, I promise," Clyde reassured him.

"Easy for you to say! You probably get in trouble all the time!"

"Hey! I do not!"

"Why are you even here, Clyde," I asked. "And Token. Red drives, why did we need either of you."

"I am the lady's chauffer," Token explained, smiling so fondly at the girl sitting beside him that I assumed he would pull her to school in a rickshaw if she so much as gave the word. "Red doesn't drive to school, anyway."

"I'm here for moral support."

"Which translates to: Clyde just wanted an excuse not to go to class," Red said, snickering.

"Whatever, as long as you worked your magic on the school's computer system, I don't need to feel guilty." Clyde paused. "You did fix my attendance in all my classes, didn't you?"

I didn't pay attention long enough get to hear the end of this, nor did I care. Tweek, his voice low, had suddenly addressed me.

"I thought you said this was supposed to be a secret! Do you know how many times I had to keep myself from almost blabbing?"

"Look on the bright side, now we don't have to hide our secret love affair."

He shoved me hard, enough so I hit the car door painfully with my side. "You better not have been telling everyone that!"

"Well, no, but it's going to be tricky keeping this domestic violence a secret, too."

He shoved me again.

I had no idea where Red was taking us, but it wasn't long before we left the town limits, and I soon deduced, based on the road we took down the mountain, that we were heading for Denver. The drive was long (it always is) and, being that it was eight in the morning, most of the backseat had fallen asleep by the time we'd neared the city. I wasn't asleep, of course, because I just _can't_, not in a moving vehicle. Clyde, on the other hand, was snoring against his window and Tweek was asleep because that's just what cars do to him, as Clyde had informed me of a few weeks ago. Being that he was in the middle, he had nothing to rest his head upon and kept shifting between leaning it back awkwardly against the seat or hunching forward. At one point the car turn abruptly and he was thrown against me, his arm up against mine, and his head couldn't help but droop against my shoulder.

I swallowed loudly, ignoring both my discomfort with general touch and what a hideous cliché this was, and instead relished the moment, glancing every so often at his hand as it dangled limply between us. When I'd somehow made up the courage to go and grab it, the car turned again and Tweek fell off me and straight onto Clyde who was startled awake. He screamed in alarm, waking up Tweek, who also started screaming in alarm, which startled Token, who also started screaming and then we had to pull over because we almost hit a truck.

By some grace of God we eventually made it to the Cherry Creek Mall parking lot without killing ourselves.

Due to the time of day and day of the week, the parking lot was fairly empty, so Token was able to park us near to the Macy's department store that Red had instructed him to aim for. The minute he and Red got out of the car and pushed forward their seats to empty us out of the backseat, Clyde, despite having been knocked out a few minutes prior, bolted out of the car and began sprinting toward the mall, calling out over his shoulder, "last one there is a rotten egg!"

No matter what the circumstance, he always finds the energy to do this every time we park somewhere together.

Of course, neither of us bothered to run after him, although Red, not used to the dynamics of our group, had taken him seriously enough to actually start moving. Token had to put a hand out, shake his head, and explain that it was best not to encourage him.

Clyde's hyperactivity did, however, remind me of where exactly we were and the potential for mayhem he could cause.

"Don't let him out of your sight," I whispered to Token when the four of us had caught up to Clyde and entered the doors of the department store together.

Token followed my gaze and we both watched as Clyde ran up to Red and excitedly asked her if we could get Cinnabon after this, only to have her flat out deny him and push him away.

"Duh," Token scoffed. "You don't need to tell me twice."

"No, I'm serious, I don't want this to be a repeat of McDonalds. Or Bennigans. Or the bowling alley."

Watching him chuckle at the memory of those events, I shot him a look, and he stopped laughing immediately, replacing it with a smile and a nod. I knew there was no way I could trust him. It wasn't a reflection of Token's babysitting skills; it was more a reflection of Clyde's innate ability to cause destruction wherever he goes and how easily he ropes all of us into it.

In fact, though I had a notion that this was how it was going to pan out, I had no idea of the extent to which this shopping trip was going to turn into less of a chance for me to get a new suit and more of a cornucopia of ways for my friends to figure out how best to get in trouble in a department store.

Sure enough, not long after Red had steered me to a rack of suit jackets and pants, I glanced up for the briefest of seconds just in time to catch Clyde and Token running across the store with shopping carts (one of which Tweek was sitting and screaming inside) until they jumped on and rode them until they hit a couple of mannequins.

I did my best to pretend like I didn't know them, even as they nervously attempted to put one female mannequin back together. Clyde stuck the woman's arm in her leg socket then finally gave up and let the thing collapse as they both ran away and Tweek scrambled after them. An employee, having missed all that, walked up minutes later, scratching his head in confusion at what had happened.

"Shouldn't he be over here picking these out with us?" I asked, jerking my head at Tweek.

Red was preoccupied at the moment, glancing between a black jacket on the hanger in her right hand and the pinstriped jacket on the hanger in her left. "One at a time, hun." She held the jackets up against my frame one at a time, surveying them carefully. "It would be a lot easier if you knew what size you are."

She stared at me for a long second, and I glanced around uneasily under her gaze.

After awhile, she finally commanded, "hold this," handed me the right jacket, and then returned to the rack.

I looked up again, and they were back at the carts again. This time Token and Clyde were both sitting in them, each holding a plastic clothes hanger. Token was close to the wall while Clyde was facing him from the opposite end of the store, with Tweek standing right behind him.

"On the count of three, push me as hard as you can!" I heard Clyde say.

"No! I'm not going to have any part in you two killing each other!"

"Dude, these are plastic hangers."

"Accidents happen, man!"

I watched Clyde whip around in his seat, staring at Tweek very seriously.

"How am I going to joust this asshole without horsepower?" he asked. "We can't let the Black Knight win, right?"

"I heard that, you racist bastard," Token called from the other side of the store.

"Look, just push me once and I'll take care of the rest." When Tweek didn't answer right away, he added, "If you do, I'll tell you something embarrassing about Craig."

Apparently that was all Tweek needed, because he immediately nodded. I narrowed my eyes but there was no time to react. Clyde and Token made eye contact, gave each other a thumbs up, then settled themselves back in the cart with their hangers poised out in front of them.

Clyde began counting down.

"3…2…"

At one, Tweek began running and pushing Clyde forward while Token simultaneously gave a heavy shove against the wall behind him. When Tweek released Clyde, he and Token propelled closer and closer to each other, ready to poke the other with their hangers, when the fronts of both carts collided so violently with one another that Token's toppled over. He gracefully managed to step out of it just as it hit the ground, but when he and Tweek began running away, Clyde struggled to quickly get out of his cart, falling out of it in the process.

I watched him crawl around on the ground before he took off running, and shook my head. The same employee showed up a few seconds later, asked me if I saw who did this, and I shrugged.

"Either those three are secretly really smart or the people here suck at their job," I commented offhandedly before Red was upon me again and thrust two pairs of pants and another jacket into my arms.

"You are not even doing anything!" she scolded, narrowing her eyes.

"I'm trying to make sure those idiots don't knock the whole place down."

"I did not come with you just for me to do all the work!"

"_You_ didn't come, you dragged _me_ with you."

"Stop being ungrateful and cooperate with me!"

I rolled my eyes. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to be looking for."

She sighed and grabbed everything I was holding. "Give me those. I'm going to go put these in a dressing room. Go over there—" she pointed to a rack nearby— "and find yourself a dress shirt."

"…um."

"Just pick one that's your size, it doesn't matter." She began to walk off, but when she glanced down at the jackets in her hand, she turned around and added, "make sure it's black," then left again before I could inquire any further.

I did as I was told, striding over to the rack of shirts and staring at them like they were bizarre foreign objects. I ran my fingers across the sleeves, searching for what I assumed was my size among all the black shirts. They all looked the same to me, but according to the prices and tags, they weren't.

I groaned.

Just as I started to pick up one of the shirts I had decided upon at random, the five or so shirts in front of me began moving and I stepped back in time to see Clyde's face suddenly emerge from between them. He was wearing a snorkel on his face and, from what I could tell, a girl's bikini top over his clothes.

He spat the snorkel out of his mouth and grinned at me. "Have you seen Token?"

"What the _hell_ are you guys doing now?"

"Marco Polo! Token's it."

I hit my forehead with my palm. "Where's Tweek."

"I dunno, last I heard him, he sounded like he was by cosmetics."

"Is it a goal of yours to get kicked out of every place you go, or something?"

His grinned deepened. "Maybe."

As I was about to retort, I heard Token's voice somewhere in the store call out, "Marco!"

In the same moment that Clyde called "polo" in return, I heard Tweek's slightly less projected voice shakily and reluctantly call out the same thing from some other direction, followed by, "guys, this is stupid, we're going to get in so much trouble!"

"Relax, Tweek!" Clyde yelled in no particular direction, before popping the snorkel back in his mouth. He winked at me, waved, and snuck back behind the rack of clothes. I heard him emerge from the other side, do what sounded like a completely unnecessary roll across the floor, then dive into the next rack.

This wasn't even remotely close to one of the dumbest things this kid had ever done in front of me, so I did as I usually do when he does stupid shit, and returned to what I was doing, pretending nothing had happened.

It was then that Token suddenly walked by, his eyes closed, expertly maneuvering around racks and mannequins (although he did almost run into a watch display, but he dodged that too).

"How are you doing that?" I asked, staring at him.

He peeked open one eye. "Memorized the store layout."

I'd always been a bit jealous of Token's memory.

"By the way, I ran into Red, and she told me give you these." I hadn't noticed he was holding them, but he suddenly thrust two pairs of shoes into my hands, one my size and one a size bigger.

"I thought Clyde was going to get me shoes."

"These are just to try on with your pants. She wasn't sure what your size was." He smiled. "How's the shopping going?"

"This is stupid."

He laughed. "It'll be over soon. Dudes have it so much easier than chicks; there's not much to what we wear."

"Whatever."

"Red seems to be having fun, anyway."

"Of course she is," I mumbled. "How in _God's_ name can you possibly find her attractive?"

"How can you find _Tweek_?"

I opened my mouth to respond, automatically rushing to defend my romantic inclinations with mouthfuls of answers to that question, until I realized Token wasn't _really_ asking me, that he wasn't really insinuating anything against Tweek by it. He smirked as I shut my lips, my face turning red as I squirmed uncomfortably, unable to respond because I _knew_ what he was really getting at.

Sparing me the embarrassment, he simply let out a chuckle and walked off, calling out "Marco" again.

In my mortified defeat, I retreated back to the dressing room where I found Red was waiting by the entrance, her arms folded, her foot tapping impatiently. When I got close enough, she shoved me in the direction of the row of changing rooms, barking at me to get in the third from the front.

Waiting inside were two sets of pants and jackets, so I hung the dark shirt I'd picked out up on the hook, and began undressing.

I had removed my shoes, my jacket, my shirt, and had kicked off my jeans when I heard scrambling in the stall beside me.

"Hey, dude!" I heard from above me, and when I looked, I saw Clyde, still wearing the snorkel, peeking over from the stall next to mine.

My hands instantly reached down to pull up my jeans, and I began yelling at him, a flustered slurred mix of curse words and demands of why the fuck he was doing what exactly he was doing.

"Can you chill out? You act like I haven't seen any of that before."

I chucked one of the shoes at his head, but he dodged it easily.

"Ooh, put on the dark blue one," he said after staring eagerly at my wares.

I glared at him and when he didn't move, I used my shoulder to ram the wall dividing the two of us, and he lost control of his footing and fell backward into his stall with a crash.

The rest of this ended up taking way more time than I would have liked to spend trying on clothes. No matter what I put on, Red was not completely satisfied, and kept shoving me back into the stall with another three or so hangers of clothing. At one point I walked out shirtless because the one she'd given me didn't fit, and at the same time I walked out, she was guiding Tweek in with his own armful of clothes. The two of us had exchanged a mortified glance, and I stole back into the stall, staring at my wide-eyed expression in the mirror on the opposite end.

Eventually (and it took thirty minutes for us to reach this point) I walked out in one of the random suits she'd given me, and she spent a little longer time staring at it than the others. She slapped my hands away as I fiddled with the sleeves, then walked around me in a small circle, analyzing my whole figure. Nodding and humming to herself, she finally told me to go back in the stall and take it off, but promised that I was done.

I asked her if that's what she wanted me to get, but she shook her head, told me, "no, I know exactly what you're going to wear," then shooed me out as she went back to tending to Tweek.

Clyde and Token were pleased to see that I had been set free, and, though I was reluctant to oblige them, they stole me away to the toy department up one floor. I pretty much knew how this was going to go, since this is _always_ how it goes when toys are involved. I won't go into too much detail, but just imagine having the three of us on the same floor as foam swords, rubber inflated balls, and skateboards, not to mention an escalator. It ended probably worse than how you think it did. Clyde also put on a pair of dinosaur footie pajamas and insisted we wear some too, but I had already let myself get involved with his shenanigans and had to draw the line somewhere.

He ended up refusing to take them off all up until Red called Token's cellphone to tell him Tweek had finished trying on suits (which took a considerably quicker time than it had for me, I noted; Red told me he had been a more compliant doll and I flipped her off).

Neither of us got to see what the other was going to be wearing, and Red was holding them all in a big pile so that I couldn't actually distinguish which belonged to whom. Red assured us that she had us matched pretty well, color-coordinated and everything. I had to keep angrily reminding her that we weren't dates and that matching was completely unnecessary, but she and Token and Clyde just kept tittering over my protests, like they were sharing a private joke that really wasn't all that private since I knew exactly why they were laughing.

While the other three wandered off again, I followed Red to the cash register, and pulled out my wallet at the same time she put the clothes on the counter. I had some cash in here, having loaded it up with a few twenties the other day. Red said she knew how to shop cheaply so I assumed this wasn't going to be too bad.

I had not anticipated four hundred dollars.

"No, _no_, fuck this shit, I am not forking over almost half a grand for one night's worth of clothes."

"If you're buying nice clothes for two people, you're not going to find it much cheaper than that."

I stayed quiet. I figured it would be more in the hundred-dollar range. If there was any indication of how often I attend dances, this was it.

She sighed. "Relax, Tweek already gave me some money."

"I told him I was gonna pay for his—"

"You still owe me three hundred bucks."

"Oh."

I think Red was waiting to see how I was planning on dealing with this information, because she stood by, watching me patiently, as I assessed this absurd amount of money in my head.

"Y'know, we could always fall back on my original plan and _forget_ the nice clothes," I said finally.

She threw her hands up in the air. "You might as well wear a garbage bag, in that case!"

"If it has to come to that, so be it."

In the end, Token, hovering nearby and eavesdropping on our conversation, offered to cover what I couldn't pay. I told him he _couldn't_, but he'd already pulled out his credit card and insisted he could, that he simply didn't owe either of us a Christmas present that year. I didn't really like that idea since I could think of a number of things I'd much prefer Token getting me for Christmas, but since this outfit was really technically what _Red_ wanted, it more than trumped whatever I wanted in terms of importance to Token. No amount of arguing on my end could change that.

It's pretty fucking convenient that Token is as rich as he is. He's like this dues ex machina, always around to literally bail us out of every finance-hampered situation. I know I've quite firmly established that I'm not above taking advantage of Token's generosity, which is true. But deep down, every time I do, there's always this nagging feeling that makes me feel slightly uncomfortable about doing it.

I've never told him that, but I think about telling him often, and this is one of those times I wish I actually had.

What I ended up doing instead was wandering over to find the other two. Tweek and Clyde, I discovered, had now occupied themselves by the perfume section. Clyde had a hand over his eyes and was urging Tweek via animated gestures with his available hand to continue doing what he was doing, which, I learned when I approached them, was spraying random perfume in the air so Clyde could guess their names.

The cloud of fragrance hanging in the air was so thick I could taste it, and even a foot or two away I already began hacking. Clyde also reeked of about twenty different non-complementing, non-distinguishable scents, so I kept my distance.

"I don't want to do this anymore!" I heard Tweek cry, half his face concealed by the collar of his sweater. "I can't fucking breathe, and we're destroying the ozone layer!"

"I think the ozone layer's pretty shot to hell by now, Tweek, c'mon," Clyde urged. "Last one, I swear, just do it!"

Tweek isn't a huge fan of arguing with Clyde because even though Clyde has no concept of logic, he's persistent and loud, and that's pretty scary to anybody, to be honest. So, as expected, Tweek caved, holding the bottle in his hand and extending his arms so that it was as far away from his face as possible. He turned his head to the side and, with shaky fingers, gently pressed down on the top of the bottle. The perfume came out in a small wisp, and Clyde immediately darted his head forward, sniffing loudly in the space around him.

Then he opened his eyes, and glanced at the counter where Tweek had placed the bottle back down next to about fifteen others. He examined them carefully, the tip of his finger poised against his bottom lip. At last, he picked up a bulbous short pink bottle and a long skinny blue bottle, and said, "it's either 'Secret Passion' or 'Gentle Escape'."

He held them up in the air in front of his face and cocked his head to the left, as if that would make a difference. Finally, he extended the hand with the pink bottle.

"Secret Passion?"

Tweek nodded shakily, but cringed immediately when Clyde began hooting and hollering like he had just won the goddamn lottery.

"That's five for five, baby, _yes_, I am the king!"

"You smell more like a queen," I mumbled, waving my hand around frantically as I approached them.

"Would you like some _toast_ with that jelly, Craig?" Clyde said, grinning.

"I would like you to go somewhere else for a second." I grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him in no particular direction. "Go help Token and Red."

He looked like he was about to protest, but then he glanced at Tweek, and grinned harder. I made a motion like I was going to backhand slap him, so he winked before trotting away.

When I turned back to address Tweek, I saw that he had wandered away and was now standing by a turning rack of necklaces, his fingers gently and absentmindedly brushing the dangling blue stones on one near the middle.

I took long strides in his direction, coming up quietly behind him and watching the way he touched the jewelry. It was subtle, but there was a definite jitteriness to the way his fingers were poised over the gems, a faint twitching to their light touch.

Without thinking, I blurted out, "you know, I have a pretty funny joke about girls and perfume."

He whipped around quickly, seizing his hand back to himself and using it to grab a fistful of his sweater hem.

"Were you standing behind me this whole time?"

"Just long enough to stop you doing what you were about to do."

We both fell to silence, but that isn't to say either of us were entirely quiet. No, our body language was quite vocal. He had narrowed his eyes and scrunched up the bridge of his nose, both glaring at me and calculating what I'd just said. Having made my move, I simply raised my eyebrows, and waited for him to make his back.

"What are you trying to say?" he demanded, his voice scathing.

"What do you think I'm trying to say?"

The topic of his thievery was something we had laid to rest a long time ago. It literally hadn't been brought up between us since that day at the arcade and the issue of where he'd gotten his handful of tokens from. I never drew attention to it, despite the fact that I still saw him doing it. I mean, I witnessed it probably a total of three times in the past how many weeks, but they happened, I _knew_ it, and only now had I hinted that I was still aware of it.

"I wasn't going to take anything, if that's what you think!"

"I don't think anything, I'm just looking out for your moral wellbeing."

"Well, gee, _thanks_, Mr. Fucking High and Mighty, I'm so grateful you're around to bestow your superior wisdom upon my lowly peasant head." He bowed mockingly to me. "Let me know if there's anything else about me that requires your assessment and approval!"

"Look, okay, all I'm saying is you don't _need_ to do this, dude," I pressed. "You can _ask_ me if you need help, y'know, getting stuff, that's kinda why I offered to help pay for your clothes and shit."

"You didn't, did you?" he asked, horrified. "I gave Red money!"

"It wasn't enough."

"Goddammit, I told you I didn't want you to! I don't need help, man! It's bad enough you're already paying for my ticket!"

"Well, Token helped too, so don't just get mad at me."

His hands flew to his hair, tugging at them in a way that looked painful. "Gah! You don't get it! What the hell is wrong with you?"

I rolled my eyes. "Why can't you just be fucking grateful?"

"Why can't _you_ get it through your head that I am not _helpless_ and I am not going to _fit_ into your cinema-warped sense of perspective of the entire fucking planet? I know how easy it is for you to confuse the two, so let me spell it out: I am not a goddamn character, I am a human being."

He didn't let me respond to this (not that I would if I could), instead shoving painfully into me as he stalked away in the direction Clyde had walked off in.

I hadn't been joking earlier when I said that it's not a normal day if I don't piss him off in some way. We actually fight pretty often, and this is typically how it ends. I don't just mean him stalking off, but he usually blows up over something that's pretty small, and blames the whole thing on how I'm completely incapable of understanding him. It's almost irrelevant to the tiny issue at hand, it's more like he's got too many feelings about bigger and more complicated things than he is letting on, and it's all bottled up inside him, only bursting forth when he has an excuse to be mad.

It's a curious feeling for me to be as fond as I am of such a short-fused ticking time bomb.

Because I am. Fond of him, I mean.

I find myself yearning for him just a little more every time he walks away.

Usually I let him go when he leaves like that, and we end up pretending it didn't happen the next time we run into each other.

It was like that again now, with me choosing to sigh and stare down at my shoes as I heard him rejoining Clyde and Token in laughter a few yards away.

In fact, I was further saved from having to actually say or do anything when, in the next moment, an armful of clothes-filled plastic bags were thrust into my hands. This was a momentary enough distraction before something suddenly collided painfully with my side and sent me stumbling sideways into a rack of handbags. A couple of bags had fallen off when I'd ran into it, so although I was still recovering from my momentary shock, I bent down to pick them up. When I had stood up again to return them to their hooks, I caught Red in the corner of my eye, arms swaying over her head, coming at me again. This time I was ready for the impact, but I still couldn't react fast enough to get away as she aimed her right hip at my left.

Having our hip bones knock into each other like that was fucking painful, and as she bounced back, I couldn't understand how I was the only one doubled over and tenderly rubbing the spot where I'd been bumped while she continued to wiggle her torso and move about like nothing had just happened.

There were few precious seconds between her second attack and the third one. Bouncing lightly on her feet, Red and her uncontrollable pelvis kept jerking dangerously toward me, and this time I was smart and quickly dodged her attempt to bump hips again, hugging the bags to myself and stalking a few feet away from her. She took no mind to this, continuing to shimmy in place, even in my absence.

"What the _fuck_ are you doing?" I mumbled, watching her as she swung her hips around back and forth.

"I'm dancing, hun," she said, her head nodding and her hair tossing rhythmically.

"Why."

"Because I love this song?"

I paused to listen and sure enough there was some fast-paced upbeat dance song playing on the store's PA, something I'd just found myself tuning out the whole time we'd been here. I'd heard this song a few times before, so I guess it was pretty popular, but I had no idea what it was called, which wasn't unusual. If Clyde doesn't inform me of these things, I am completely clueless.

With an awareness of the sound, suddenly Red's movements didn't look quite so odd and erratic. In fact, they were fluid, I had to give her that, affecting every appendage and limb, making it look completely natural for her to have this sort of grace and rhythm in even the simplest actions as walking a few steps or brushing hair behind her ear. Whatever crazy shit she was doing, she was doing it well.

That, however, did not mean she needed to include me. Red did not get this memo, unfortunately, because she came at me again, this time grabbing me by the fingertips and swinging my arms around, forcing me to involuntarily sway my upper body along with her.

I instantly seized my hands back and held them close to myself protectively, glaring at Red like I was offended she had touched me.

She stopped moving long enough to place a hand on her hip and stare back, cocking an eyebrow in a mixture of confusion and irritation. "Jeez, lighten up, Craig, you act like you've never danced before. I hope you're not allergic or something, my god."

When I didn't respond to that, I watched any trace of annoyance drain out of her face, her eyebrows knitting together in slight alarm.

"Please don't tell me you've never danced before."

I rolled my eyes at the melodrama and desperation in her tone.

"It looks fucking stupid, of course not."

"It's _not_ stupid, it's fun and a beautiful union of body language and sound!"

"Okay, maybe it's nice and shit when you do it, but I on the other hand have never been a cheerleader or didn't take ballroom dancing lessons when I was five, so I probably look more like a drunk hippo."

"It's not that hard, y'know."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't know, so there."

"What are you going to do at the prom, then, huh? It's called a _dance_, dude, not a _stand around by the punch table for three hours_."

"I'll figure out something to do."

She sighed. "What a disappointing evening that will be for Tweek."

"He doesn't know how to dance either."

"You never know how some people are in the moment. He might surprise you, and then you'll be completely unprepared."

"It's not like we'd be dancing together!"

But of course it was impossible for me at this point not to imagine this scenario. _Would_ we? Not that either of us could, but if we _could..._I didn't want to humor the idea, it was pretty fucking silly, and yet the "if"s and "maybe"s were too overwhelming to ignore.

Maybe he wanted to dance.

Maybe he was anticipating this. Looking forward to this.

I imagined myself being unable to entertain him sufficiently enough for the whole evening and him flocking to other people more entertaining than I, other people who _would_ dance with him, and then this suddenly became a dilemma.

Red had already began walking off in search of the other three, waving her hand at me dismissively. "Whatever, suit yourself, loverboy."

"Could you teach me."

She stopped, then spun around on her heels. "Run that by me again?"

My face flushed in embarrassment, and I avoided eye contact, instead choosing to glare at the floor. "Can you teach me, um, how to dance."

She cupped a hand around her ear and leaned close. "What was that? Craig Tucker is asking _me_ to teach _him_ something? Teach him how to _dance_ more precisely? Mr. I'm-Too-Cool-For-Fucking-School Craig Tucker?"

I swatted at her hand, annoyed at her condescending gesture. "Quit it, just give me a fucking answer already."

She shrugged. "Sure, why the fuck not? You can come over to my house right after this."

That had been less painful than I imagined, so I sighed in slight relief.

"However—"

Of course there was a catch.

"—you need to tell me upfront that you like Tweek, and then I'll do it."

"H-how do you—" I groaned. "Which one of them told you?"

"Neither." She grinned. "I still keep in contact with Beannie, though. She's always been fond of me, that one."

My fucking sister is a goddamn traitor. It's true, though, those two have always been close. Red used to babysit my sister a lot, like I mentioned, and they were really tight, got along really well. They went to the movies together, the mall, the park, played games, did hair and makeup, gossiped in Bea's room. Besides Beannie, Red also likes to call her "Kiddo," as in Beatrix Kiddo as in Kill Bill, and Bea's always thought that was cool as shit, and I'm not going to lie, I wish I'd thought of it first.

"Why do you have to fucking know? Why does everyone have to know? This isn't some cool kids club of secrecy, y'know, it's like my _private_ business."

"You need to be honest with yourself, and that requires being honest with other people."

"No it doesn't. Do you just want to justify that I never liked you because I only dig dudes or something? Because that's not how it works."

"I'm insulted. I'm just looking out for you, okay?"

"Whatever. I just need to say it?"

"You just need to say it."

"Take me to your house and I'll say it there."

So she did. No one asked too many questions when Token pulled up to Red's house and she announced that I was coming with her. Well, okay, there were some questions. Not from Token, who I thought was the only person qualified to be asking questions. He was well familiar with the dynamics and history of our relationship to be comfortable with the girl of his affections hanging out at her home with his best friend.

Clyde, however, came up with about a dozen inquiries about what we were up to, why I was being such a homewrecker, blah blah blah, and Tweek was showing way too much concern about the spontanaeity of the decision to do this.

We waved them off and Token's car pulled away.

I noticed Red's dad's truck was not in the driveway, which meant that the two of us would be alone. I knew that even if he were here, he wouldn't care about me being around, since, granted the friendship he had with my dad, he approved of me. Any other boy and it would have been out of the fucking question.

Red unlocked the door with an incredibly busy ring of keys (too many fucking noisy dangling keychains and few actual keys), and opened up to a house I hadn't visited since we were both nine.

"Sorry for the mess. Neither of us have been home yet."

She had no reason to be sorry. It was a little cleaner than I could recall from the last time I'd been here, which made sense. Red's dad was a single parent that worked all the time, so when Red was too young to pull her weight around here, the place kind of fell into a predictable bit of disarray. Now that Red was a older, I assumed she did a fair share of chores, and the place looked decent enough to a normal person's standards.

It was about the same as I remembered, same mustard colored walls, same old brown furniture everywhere, same stained carpet, same faint stench of beer and wood shavings.

Their home was one story and with a single bedroom, so we walked past the living room where I noticed the pull-out couch still looked freshly slept in and continued on through the nearest hallway, where the door to Red's room awaited.

Unlike how much the rest of the house had matched my memory of it, her room had changed quite a bit.

The last time I had been in Red's room was when I'd come over to work on our egg project together in the fourth grade. At the time, her room had had a little less stuff in it. The walls had been filled with drawings she'd done, there were stuffed toys strewn across the floor, everything was light and pastel blues and greens and all other such little girl things.

Now, it was filled with stuff so that it looked more crowded than I'd remembered. Up against the wall opposite the door, the one with the window, she had her turntables set up by the window, along with her keyboard, a stereo, a stool with her laptop on top, and a tower of CDs. Along the other wall, a large aquarium sat on her desk, and I saw the long body of her python squashed up against the glass. She also had a bookshelf near the corner that, when I strode near it, I found was occupied with books that were either English literary classics (Bronte sisters, Austen, Wilde) or about urban legends and serial killers (a morbid interest I'd discovered she acquired in the last few years).

The walls were adorned with either various posters of electronic music artists (Daft Punk, Deadmau5, Skrillex, according to the names on the bottoms of each picture) or pictures of her doing various exciting things: snow boarding in one, swing dancing in another, cheerleading in others, holding her trombone in a band picture she shared with Kevin (holding a flute) and Token (holding his baton). Besides all the glow in the dark dolphins she had plastered all over her ceiling, she also had a hanging plastic terrarium and a mobile of the solar system.

The one thing to take up the least amount of space in the room was her bed, which was a tiny twin squeezed right into the corner, but even that was adorned with low-hanging christmas lights and many of the stuffed toys she had owned in her youth.

The one thing she didn't have was a TV, which baffled me, but I said nothing about this.

She was too busy putting her bag and coat away in her closet to tend to me, and I didn't know what to do with myself. I didn't know where to sit and I didn't really want to touch anything, not in a room like this where there were so many things to touch.

When she whipped around to find me still standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, she gestured wildly at me with her fingers to scoot back until my shins hit the back of my bed and forced me to sit down. She placed her laptop on the floor, pulled up the stool right in front of me, and threw herself down.

"So, with whom will you be employing the tutelage I am bestowing upon you this fine afternoon?"

I shrugged offhandedly. "I dunno."

"'I dunno'?"

"Girls."

"You don't like girls."

"Anyone."

"You don't like anyone."

"Myself?"

"Uh huh…"

I paused. "You?"

She smiled. "That's sweet. How's your _date _going to feel about that, hmm?"

"He's not my date."

"Please, cut the bullcrap. You know what I want to hear."

"Why is this such a big deal to you?"

"I just need to hear it."

"Well I can't say it. I couldn't even say it to Token or Clyde, they had to ask me and I nodded."

"But you said it to Bea."

"She's my sister, that's different."

"You don't have to say the exact words, just strongly imply them."

"This isn't any of your business."

"True as that may be, let me tell you something that might make the reason behind my curiosity little more clear." She took in a big breath. "I haven't told anyone this so feel fucking special, okay, you little shit?"

I sighed and nodded.

"So, you know how for the longest time when we were kids I really hated you?"

"Oh, yeah, that was easy to miss."

"Yes, well, you need to know: it wasn't in malice or anything. Just that sort of frenemy loathing. You were cool, just easier to pick on than be nice to.

"Then Bebe Stevens had that boy/girl birthday party in the sixth grade, do you remember that? We played seven minutes in heaven and you were my partner—"

"I remember you shoved me into the door frame pushing me into the room."

"Yes! You remember, good. Do you remember, too, what I said? 'Let's just kiss and get it over with,' all like I didn't give a shit, right?"

"But we didn't."

"Because you didn't want to! You didn't want to kiss me. You told me to pretend I did because you just didn't want to. And..." She took a deep breath. "That was it. We were in a compromising sexually loaded situation and you didn't want it, and I didn't like that you didn't want it and that confused me. I don't know if it was an indication of your preferences or your general distaste for people—"

"Or all absence of a desire to have my first kiss snatched away via the world's stupidest party game?"

"That would have never occurred to me, okay?" She snapped. "I just…I don't know what came over me, but I didn't _like_ that you said no."

"Yeah, and then you never spoke to me again that whole summer."

"Well, I had to do a lot of thinking. That was the summer I realized that I had somehow developed feelings for you, y'know. I don't know _how_, but I just did. And of course I couldn't talk to you again because, shit, I didn't know how to deal with that. How could you ever like me back when I'd been such a bitch to you? I was an eleven-year-old little asswipe with hormones, what the hell was I supposed to do? I mean, I avoided you, first, but then I thought _changing_ might work. I became really nice to you, the beginning of seventh grade, do you remember?"

"Weirdest experience of my _life_, but yeah."

"Weird, yes, but you didn't push me away, did you? And even if it felt so foreign to me, I found that just being around you was _nice_. I got a little addicted to feeling so happy."

This was starting to sound familiar. I drew my legs up on the bed and hugged them close to myself.

"When I mustered the courage to ask you to Sadies freshman year," Red continued, "and you said yes, I was so _elated_, I might as well have been proposing to you."

"Jesus Christ, Red, we're in high school."

"I know! I know, don't you think I know that? But can you really blame me? I had really strong feelings for you, it's a small town, who knows how far any of us are going to go, we already had such a classic clichéd romantic history of bickering childhood friends. I really thought you were, y'know, the one. I could see myself marrying Craig Tucker. "

"Give me a break…"

"Shut the fuck up, asshole! What the fuck do you know? It's dumb, you don't have to tell me that. You _weren't_ the one, alright? I get that now. I just didn't realize that right away, not even after you said no to prom because, well, it's just prom, that didn't mean my chances were completely shot. I said yes to Token but I still harbored emotions for you and then…and then I took Bea to soccer practice a few Saturdays ago and she told me everything."

"Oh, my god," I muttered, burying my face in my hands.

"She loves you a lot, y'know," Red continued, her voice a little quieter now. "She looks up to you. She worries about you. She, um, was worried about how things were going for you and she spilled about Tweek."

_Of all the things to start conversations about, little sister_, I thought to myself bitterly.

"When I heard it, I, um, couldn't comprehend that you had feelings for another person, another person that _wasn't_ me."

"That's what bothered you? _Really_? A little self-centered much?"

"It was important, though! It snapped me out of my infatuation, don't you see? Having to face you loving someone else made me see that I was wrong about you. It made me see that the world had different things in store for the both of us."

On the last few words, her voice suddenly broke. She wasn't crying. But this was obviously hard for her to tell me.

"I…I still care about you, though," she continued after a long silence. "In a different way, of course, and I want to see you happy with someone. So just…give me some closure. It will make me so happy, make the end to my infatuation with you final and absolute. Just…assure me that I hadn't wasted all these feelings on a stupid boy who's not capable of loving anyone."

I've watched about a thousand romance films in the span of my lifetime. I'd never found myself drawn to them beside any aesthetic quality. Perhaps one of them was appropriate now in my life, but for the life of me, I couldn't think of a person who understood how I felt about Tweek better than Red at this moment. Our situations weren't the same, but the conviction in her tone as she confessed feelings to me, feelings she had _for_ me, convinced me that she knew exactly what I was going through.

"You didn't," I said after a moment, glancing to the side to avoid her gaze.

"Didn't what?"

"Didn't waste your time. On a boy. Like that."

"So Craig Tucker can love, are you telling me that?"

"Maybe."

"You're into him?"

"Like."

"You _like_ him."

"I'm new to this, but about as far as I can tell, yes."

She smiled.

"Well," she said, leaping to her feet, "that's good enough for me. Let's do this."

"What? Do what?"

I watched he bound away from the stool, off toward the turntables.

"Is that it?"

She ignored me in favor of rifling through the crate of vinyls she had sitting on her floor. I saw her select one and put it onto the needle.

What came out was not what I expected.

The low hum of a bass, the crooning of a saxophone, the velvety smooth slow serenade of a deep-voiced man… Look, I wasn't a music guy myself, it's something that completely eludes me unless it has a story attached to it in the form of a musical or a soundtrack. But I knew for a fact that this was not anywhere close to modern music.

"What the hell is this?" I demanded as Red returned to me and suddenly grabbed my fingers. I had no chance to recoil because I was too busy trying to figure this out, but I also didn't hold her hands back, so while I remained limp in her grip, she held me tightly and tugged sharply, pulling me to my feet and forward as she walked backward and led me to the center of the room.

"It's Nat King Cole," she answered.

"This is not the kind of music they're going to be playing at the dance, I hope you realize that-"

"Yes, yes, be quiet." She stood still in front of me for a moment, then began tapping her toes gently in rhythm with the song. She squeezed my fingers suddenly and said, "okay, with me now. One-two-_step_."

What Red ended up teaching me sounded a lot easier than it actually was. Hell, maybe it was as easy as it sounded, but I wouldn't have known the difference. All we were doing was taking steps back and forth in rhythm with the music, but the whole time, I kept missing the beat and screwing Red up.

"Red, no one is going to be dancing like this," I finally said, getting annoyed now with my rate of failure for such a simple movement.

"Yeah, well, the way people _will_ be dancing isn't exactly teachable, unless you want things to get really uncomfortable between us really fast."

I said nothing.

"You need to learn how to move to the beat of the music, no matter what it is, and the easiest way to do that is to start slow and with something more structured. Loosening up is much easier after that."

"I can't even do _this_."

"Shut up, you're doing fine."

There were not enough words in existence that could convince me otherwise, but I wasn't allowed to argue with Red, and at one point I wasn't allowed to whine or say anything that would come out as negative (she officially made a ban on this when I accidentally stepped on her foot and _I_ was the one who started cursing up a storm).

At some point, though, and it took fifteen minutes of back and forth stepping, I don't know _what_ I did, but Red was pleased, and began complimenting me lavishly. Then she added a side step, which took even longer for me to get the hang of. She didn't give up on me, and after that, I learned arm movements, learned to turn, learned to turn her, and eventually she even put on much faster songs.

I hadn't realized how much time had passed until I heard a car pull up in the driveway outside. It was Red's dad obviously, which meant that it was around two-thirty. We'd been doing this for three and a half hours, and I hadn't felt like I'd learned more than how to extend my arms and step somewhat on beat.

I didn't express this feeling to Red, though, because the entire time she'd been teaching me, there was this huge smile plastered on her face. Even when I told her I had to go and she went to turn off the music, she continued to glow.

It took all the way up until she walked me to the front door and I took one step out that I finally said, "I don't know why you look so happy when I accomplished diddly-_shit_ this afternoon."

As per the agreement to our negativity ban, she socked me in the arm, and I didn't even try to avoid it.

"You just spent three hours in my room letting me teach you how to _dance_, do you realize that?"

"I'm already sufficiently appalled myself, you don't have to rub it in."

She laughed loudly. "You don't get it! Who gives a fuck if you learned anything?"

Before I could get any more clarity out of her, she reach out and jerked the brim of my hat down so far that it completely obscured my vision and clung tightly to that area of my face. As I struggled to wrench myself free, she used her now free hand to shove me hard, and I stumbled off her doorstep.

"When you show off your six-count step to Tweek, tell him not to thank me, 'kay?"

In the time span it took me to regain balance and seize my hat off my face, Red let out another cackle and slammed the front door behind me.

It had been five years since Red had pulled my hat down over my face, so perhaps this might have been a touching, nostalgic moment for the two of us. Instead, I spent the whole walk home wondering what the hell was wrong with this psycho bitch.

When I had finally made it home about ten minutes later, I immediately ran up to my room, locked the door, and sat down in front of my computer. I pulled up YouTube and looked for the song Red had first played for me, and, when I found it, I moved to the middle of the room, placing my hands at the exact place where I imagined her form might be in front of me. As the music crooned along behind me, I began practicing the things she had taught me, counting under my breath and closing my eyes to strain to remember it all. The image of her dancing in front of my melted away and she was replaced with _someone else_ and suddenly my movements felt more fluid and natural and I thought I was getting the hang of it.

Then my bedroom door creaked opened to reveal Bea with a hairpin and a sneer on her face.

This was the equivalent to me being caught touching myself and I began cursing her and flipping her off and telling her to get out, but she just cackled and cackled.

When she hadn't left and both my anger and her amusement had subsided, she asked me with genuine curiosity what exactly I was doing and after I informed her, she closed the door gently behind her, and in a quiet and generally awed tone, asked if she could watch.

I objected at first, but after she promised not to make fun of me, I rolled my eyes and consented, figuring she'd already seen me and that no further harm could be done.

So I went at it again, my hands poised in front of me, my mouth wordlessly counting along, my feet stumbling clumsily along, and my sister sitting cross-legged on her bed in muted fascination.

It was in that moment that I remembered what Red had said, about Bea caring about me, about her worrying about me, about all that being the catalyst for her confessing to Red about my crush with Tweek.

I stopped moving, dropping my hands to my sides.

"This is a lot easier for me to practice if I have someone to practice _with_," I muttered offhandedly, glancing at her in the corner of my eyes.

My sister blinked two or three times, surprised that I had addressed her with these words, and then pointed to herself questioningly.

"Better than you being voyeuristic and useless over there."

Scrambling quickly to her feet, Bea rushed forward in a strange bout of eagerness and obedience on her end. I grabbed her fingers the minute she got close enough to me, her hands feeling small and dainty in my grasp, and in one swift movement, I swung her around in a half circle, lifting her feet off the ground as I did. She involuntarily squealed in a rush of delight, and I realized it'd been too long since I heard such innocent and childish noises out of my sister.

For the next two hours, I taught my sister everything I had learned about how to dance. Maybe I wasn't the best teacher, being that I had no fucking clue what I was doing. Hell, for the first thirty minutes, dancing consisted of her standing on my feet while I held her hands and continued to practice stepping back and forth in rhythm. It hadn't taken long, though, for her to prove herself a good partner and an even better dancer than I could ever hope to be. And in even less time, we had both forgone the structured routine I had been taught that afternoon and began making things up. I twirled her, dipped her, picked her up more than a few times and swung her around like I'd done the first time, and she screamed and giggled until her face turned red.

This lasted all the way up until dinnertime, where neither of us brought it up. We also spent all of dinner being completely civil to each other, which I could tell my parents found to be pretty odd. When my mother asked us what all that stomping was going on upstairs, Bea and I exchanged a glance and a grin, and almost simultaneously uttered, "nothing, mom."

* * *

I slept through most of Saturday morning, waking up around noon and spending the rest of the afternoon lazing around in my sleeping clothes.

While I was scriptwriting the night before, Clyde had called me up and told me that he wanted us to get ready together. At first I had no idea what he was talking about, so thank God he had bothered to call me, because it probably would have completely slipped my mind that that fucking stupid-ass dance was the next day.

Lo and behold, then, around six o'clock, Clyde showed up on my doorstep with all intention of more than abusing my doorbell.

Token had been invited to come as well, I'd come to learn, but he had to decline the invitation, being that he was on an entirely different schedule than the two of us. There were too many lengths this rich boy thought were necessary to getting ready: a manicure, a massage, a facial, things that he could afford or cared to do that we couldn't and didn't. There was also the other major part of his agenda that involved taking Red out to dinner beforehand, so adding that to the culmination of things he needed to do meant that there was no place to squeeze us in.

Clyde was a little upset Token wouldn't be with us while we got ready, especially since he wasn't going to be in the car with us either. I assumed the only reason Clyde was disappointed about this was that he had been looking forward to us renting a limo together (he'd never been in one, but I could only picture him taking advantage of the mini bar and the sunroof). Token being the _dude, _however, meant he had to conform to whatever plans Red had for her evening, and said plans revolved entirely around her girlfriends and their dates (though I reasoned they insisted on Token joining their party just so he could generously help cover the cost of _their_ limo).

I didn't hold his absence against him. We all said we'd see each other there, and Clyde got over it eventually. In fact, he got over it rather quickly, and was actually pleased that the two of us would get to spend more "quality time" (his words not mine) together, which apparently didn't happen enough for him. I reminded him that we went to school together and worked together almost every day, but he insisted that this was different.

After enduring two or so minutes of his nonstop bell ringing, I wrenched open the door to this grinning bastard, a bulky white paper bag clutched between his hands.

Not that we would anyway since we didn't have fancy dates or anything (or perhaps not even then), but Clyde and I were ultimately too poor to afford any sort of goings-out for dinner. I was just going to eat cereal or microwave a Hot Pocket, but, as Clyde soon informed me, he had went out of his way and bought us chili cheese fries and fish tacos.

I have no reason to snub free food, so I accepted, and the two of us ended up sitting on my front door step to eat because my mom didn't want the house to smell like chili and fish.

Eating with Clyde can be kind of difficult sometimes if there's some communal food shared between the two of us. In this case, it was the box of fries. He was subconsciously overprotective throughout the entire meal and kept grabbing fries I would be reaching for or quickly stuffing about ten in his mouth while I was distracted with one. It didn't bother me at first since I don't eat much anyway and I was pretty much used to this, but at one point, I was about to put one in my mouth and he actually _took_ it from me.

I slapped the next one he picked up onto the ground and after he got over his whimpering and crying, he stopped being greedy with the food.

We polished off our tacos rather quickly, talking between bites or even with food in our mouths, sometimes sitting through the silence in a way that was completely comfortable, and when we were two-thirds of the way through our fries, Clyde asked, "how's your movie going, by the way?"

"Great. It's going great."

"You haven't touched it since last Saturday, have you?"

"Quiet. I'm thinking of inserting animations as transitions between scenes, get all Monty Python up in this bitch."

"Monty who?"

I stared at him.

He blinked back.

"How are we best friends."

He shoved me lightly and started laughing after that, but I was totally serious. When I had explained that it was British comedy, he told me British comedy scares the fuck out of him, and then I asked him again, "_how_ are we best friends."

This second time, however, after his laughter died down, he grabbed one of the last few fries in the box, but instead of shoving it immediately in his mouth, he began tearing at it with his fingers and letting the pieces fall to the ground. Clyde not being one to waste food like that, I assumed he was thinking hard about something. Clyde also doesn't think hard about much, so the fact that he was doing both now meant he was probably going to do or say something completely weird any minute now.

"Hey, um, dude, speaking of which…" he began

"Speaking of what which?" I asked, "British comedy?"

"No, stupid, us being best friends."

I raised an eyebrow. "You sound like you're breaking up with me."

"No!" He wrenched his head up from where it had been staring at the concrete beneath our feet to stare at me with wide horrified eyes. "No, the complete opposite of that!"

"_That_ sounds like you want to take our friendship to the next level, which I'm just going to go ahead and flat out deny you right now before you embarrass yourself."

"Dude, shut up and let me talk!"

I smirked and put a fry in my mouth.

"I just wanted to, uh," he said, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, "say _thanks_ for, er…"

"For what."

"For telling me. About Tweek, I mean."

Oh. That.

"I know that was probably hard," he continued quickly. "Since I rip on you all the time and you're kind of a robot."

"Yeah, well, don't thank me, I didn't do it for your benefit."

"No, I'm not saying you did, but, well, it means a lot to me." He cleared his throat. This was heading down an awkward path I knew we could both feel, and I didn't understand why Clyde kept pushing it.

"Uh huh…"

"Just—the whole honesty thing. That's what means a lot to me. I like to think we can tell each other anything, y'know? Like you could tell me if something's bothering you, too, right? Or…whatever, really."

I sighed. "Yeah, Clyde, sure."

"I'm just saying that telling me about Tweek is kind of a milestone for you, dude. Look, I know we don't do this whole feelings thing very often, but the point I'm trying to make is I just want you to know you can tell me this shit, okay?"

"Why are you talking about this now."

"I've been thinking about it a lot, alright. Like, this whole time we've been working together, which, by the way, has been really cool, although I still don't fucking understand why _you_ got a job."

"It gives me ideas."

"And I still don't get _how_ that works."

"I didn't either, but I watched this episode of _The Big Bang Theory_ and it totally makes sense. Something about a menial job occupying my basal ganglia and thus simultaneously freeing up my prefrontal cortex for more important problems, I think? I mean, Einstein did it, apparently, so there's gotta be some science to it."

"That's a sitcom, man, not Bill Nye the fucking Science Guy."

"They have scientists helping write those scripts, okay?"

"Whatever, whatever!" He shook his head and waved his hands about. "We're getting off track here. The point is that I've been thinking about it, right, and I just…We're bros, man. I don't like lies and secrets between us just because one of us is afraid of how the other is going to react, y'know? That's not how bros do. I just, er, wanted to get that out there. So we never have to have this super awkward conversation ever again."

"We never _had_ to. This is kind of an unspoken thing."

"Yeah, well, you know what, we're _bros_, man, do I need a motherfucking reason to want to talk about _feelings_? You even know what that word means? It's not just some three letter synonym for friends; it's short for _brothers_, dude, we are brothers, you and I. I totally care about you!"

My face flushed instantly. His did, too, I think, but I had suddenly started staring at my shoes so I never saw it.

I swallowed loudly, keeping my eyes locked on my laces. "Okay. I—um."

"You don't have to tell me you care back. I know."

My lips twitched at the corners, the tiniest of smiles itching its way across my face.

"And since you were so generous as to tell me about the huge homo lust you have for Tweek," Clyde went on, "I'll be completely upfront with _you_ about something that's kind of related."

The awkward moment finally past, I snuck a glance at him, cocking an eyebrow. "Alright."

"I…!" He paused for what I assumed was dramatic effect. "…do _not_ have a crush on Kevin." At the end of this, he held his hands open and out, as if to say, "ta-da!" and wait for me to clap in response.

"Was that the whole point of this conversation?" I asked.

"Just thought I'd get that out there before we go to prom tonight," he said, lowering his arms slowly.

"You know I'm never going to stop thinking you do, right."

"But I'm being completely honest with you here!"

"Doesn't change a thing."

He groaned and I laughed, and suddenly the front door opened up behind us, my mother's shadow towering over us.

"Don't you two have some kind of _social_ you have to get ready for now?" she asked, hand on her hip.

"Yeah, yeah, we're coming right now, ma."

"Momma-Tucker, can I just say you look _fabulous_ today?"

"Don't be a kiss-ass, Clyde," she said, smiling and patting Clyde on the head before turning around and walking back inside.

"I may not have a crush on Kevin," Clyde said as the two of us got to our feet, "but your _mom_ on the other hand…"

"I will stomp on your nuts, okay, don't test me."

Since Clyde took longer than I did to get ready (for what reason, I don't know), I let him use my single shower first. There wasn't any hot water left when it was my turn and my father started pounding on the door about three minutes in, so it wasn't the most glorious experience.

My mom had ironed both our outfits so they were both waiting for us to change into them at the same time in my room. I didn't have any clue what Red had picked out for me, so it was just as much as a surprise for me as it might have been for anyone when I approached my bed and found that my mother had laid out this off-white button-up shirt with a little dark blue/green plaid bowtie, as well as these matching pants and blazer, both of which were patterned with thick, alternating blue and black stripes.

It wasn't as terrible as I had assumed she would have picked out for me. Maybe a little too vintage classy circus ringmaster for my nonexistent tastes, but it was nothing to complain about.

Not that I could.

Besides, I had little knowledge on or care for what was and wasn't fashionable, as opposed to Red, so I trusted her judgment and put everything on.

While I tugged on these really long, blue argyle socks, Clyde suddenly handed me a pair of shoes he'd pulled out of his duffel bag. His dad hooked him up with them, he told me, and, though I assumed he was going to ask me to pay him back, he waved me off and told me to put them on. Being that he was an heir to a mall shoe store dynasty (or so he referred to himself as in this guidebook he wrote awhile back about the best methods for picking up girls—yeah, you can imagine how well that's working for him), I conceded him as being the resident authority on all things footwear. So when he informed me that they were normally pretty expensive shoes but were sturdy and they should fit my foot well, I believed him.

In addition, Red had told him to pick them out specifically, or at least that's what he said. Again, I trusted Red's judgment, so I nodded and accepted them.

After the shoes were on and laced, I found there were a pair of suspenders included too, and as attached them to the pants and began slipping one strap on over my shoulder, I looked over at Clyde on the other side of my room to see how he was doing.

He was done, I think, since he was currently checking himself out in the full-length mirror he'd borrowed from my sister's room and set up in the corner. I was sincerely _hoping_ he wasn't done, though, because he looked like a hot fucking mess.

"What in God's name are you wearing?" I asked, eyeing the billowy high-waist pants, the long loose jacket, the shockingly bright red of the fabric. There was even a chain dangling out of his pocket.

"Zoot suit, motherfucker."

"You look ridiculous."

"You mean fly, right? Fly as hell. _Gangster_, even."

"I have to go out in public with you? Are you serious?"

"I've got a sweet hat." He slid his fingertips along the brim as if to emphasize his point. "Don't hate."

"Whatever." Clyde is lucky I only have the capacity to give a limited amount of shit about any one thing.

It took us a few more minutes to finish up after that. It would have taken less time, but after I pulled on my jacket, Clyde felt the need to examine me and make sure I looked presentable enough, an examination that apparently entailed straightening out creases and adjusting sleeves and collars and the bow tie. I had rolled my eyes while he crooned at me during the whole process, but didn't outright object. He knew better than I did, anyway (though his suit preference is not to be any indication of that, I suppose).

When I had sufficiently passed this test, we finally left my room. Clyde was out the door before me, but I had only placed my foot on the first step when I remembered that I needed to take the yearbook video camera with me, and I rushed back up to my room. The case was sitting on my desk, so I grabbed it and left again.

We encountered Bea at the bottom of the stairs to the attic. I knew she was there before I saw her because I could already hear her laughing at Clyde's attire long before I had descended after him.

When I did, though, she stopped laughing immediately and thoroughly studied me for an extra second or two, a hand poised on her chin in thought.

"You look cute," she remarked at last, nodding her head approvingly.

I let out a sigh of relief, though I don't know why I cared. "Red dressed me."

"I figured as much." Then she glanced at me again and frowned. "Why are you still wearing your hat?"

My hand automatically rose to cling to it protectively, as if she would snatch it away from me if I didn't. "Because I can."

"Don't wear that, you psycho!" she shrieked, grabbing at her face like I had just done something horrific in front of her. "No! Slick your hair back!"

I had been in enough sibling arguments to know where this was going, and while on a different day I may have been inclined to indulge her, I did not have the kind of time for that right now. I shoved Clyde forward and the two of us quickly stomped past her and down the second set of stairs.

Unfortunately, she followed.

"Ooh, don't you kids look cute," my mother said the minute she saw us. She was standing in the living room folding clothes on the couch while my dad sat in his armchair watching TV.

"Mom!" Bea hollered behind me as I tried to block her from reaching downstairs. She shoved me aside and ducked out from around me, running straight up to our mom and tugging on her dress. "Tell him not to wear his hat."

"He can if he wants, Bea."

"But he'd look so much better with his hair slicked back, don't you think?"

Mom is normally on my side when it comes to arguments with Bea, but now that the little cretin was bringing my _hair_ into it, I could see my mom's face change in consideration.

My mom and my hair are not good friends. She has spent many years trying to get it to bend to her whims, but I'll be damned if I let her win this war.

She looked ready to go upstairs and find her comb, so I was not above grabbing Clyde and running out the door before she got the chance. It was at that moment, though, that my father finally looked over at us and grunted his first words of the evening.

"Are you two going to this thing together?"

I was grateful for the interruption, because it had momentarily distracted my mom. It always secretly delights her when my dad notices things or pays attention to things or has opinions on things. That should give you an indication of how often he does those things.

"Yeah, dad."

He grunted again and looked back at the TV. "Didn't know you swung that way, boy."

"Not like that, dad!"

"Actually, it's exactly like that, Tom," Clyde interrupted, smiling wickedly.

"Don't call my dad, Tom, and don't tell him—"

"Would've gone for the black one if I were you," he muttered in my direction, and I was torn between horror and confusion when I couldn't tell if he was kidding or not.

He addressed Clyde again. "Hmph. How you treatin' my boy, Donovan?"

"Dad!"

"Like the princess he is, sir."

"_Clyde._"

"You could say I'm _enthralled_, by him, even!"

"I will fucking murder you."

My mom interrupted us, thank God. "Let me get a picture of you two!"

Although I guess this wasn't any better.

I had no clue where she'd had it this whole time (probably hid it so I couldn't run away), but she already pulled the camera out before I could object.

Clyde kept trying to get me to hold his arm for the picture, but I punched him in the exact spot where he wanted me to hold him and he instantly gave up right then and there. Instead, the two of us stood shoulder to shoulder against one another, Clyde grinning cheekily while I forced a closed mouth smile. Mom made off with two or three snapshots before I seized the door open, pushed Clyde out, uttered a terse goodbye to the lot of them, then finally escaped.

"Your family is so cute, man," he said the moment we slid into the car together.

"Stuff it."

I buckled my seatbelt, and, laughing, Clyde turned on the engine and the two of us drove off.

* * *

I raised my fist hesitantly but stopped inches away from the door and glanced behind me. Clyde, still sitting in the car where it was parked by the curb, gestured for me to go on.

I turned back, lifted my hand again, and knocked once, somewhat loudly, then a second time, a little gentler. Long seconds passed before I heard two or three locks click from the inside and watched the doorknob turn very slowly. The door eased open gradually, with a drawn out squeaky whine, and I was instantly reminded of some horror movie where the idiot boy dares to run up to and knock on the door of the clearly haunted house and is greeted by a self-opening door and a eerie empty foyer.

As always, reality did not match up with my imagination, and the door stopped after opening up about an inch. When I glanced up, I saw both a locked lock-chain dangling between the door and the frame, as well a single eye peeking out at me in the tiny crack of open door, the latter of which was staring at me intensely.

I frowned at this and uttered an inquisitive hello.

The eye widened in what I assumed was recognition, then the door shut abruptly in my face. I heard the chain being undone from the inside, and the doorknob turned again, the door crawling open at the same sluggish speed at which it had opened the first time. It kept going, though, all the way, and opened fully to Tweek's father peering down his long nose and smiling at me.

"Hello, Craig," he drawled through the smile, his eyes half-lidded.

"Hi, um, Mr. Tweak."

"Richard."

"Hm?"

"No need for formalities, son. Call me Richard."

"Sure, alright."

I felt a little uncomfortable about calling him by his first name so I decided to just never address him again. In fact, I said nothing more entirely. Unfortunately, Mr. Tweak didn't say anything more either. He did, however, continue to smile at me, stand in front of me with his hand on the door, and not move so much as an inch or invite me inside.

We stood opposite one another for what felt like a millennium.

I cleared my throat. "I'm, er, here to get Tweek, is he ready?"

"No, he's not."

"Will he be any time soon?"

"Not sure."

I didn't know what else to say, so we fell to silence again, which was now not only uncomfortable but also irritating. I lifted myself slightly on my tiptoes, attempting to inconspicuously glance over his shoulder at the rest of his house, as if Tweek might be hiding behind him. I didn't see Tweek, but I saw some of the furniture and a staircase and also what I think were two cats pawing along the floor.

"Um, should I come back, then?" I asked, lowering myself down and frowning.

His face suddenly lit up slightly, the most radical change in emotion I'd seen in him ever (which wasn't saying much). "No, no, not at all, you and your chubby little friend are welcome to come inside, if you'd like."

I was about to respond when a cat, looking nothing like the first two I saw, suddenly darted out between Mr. Tweak's legs and bolted past me, disappearing somewhere down the street. Unable to speak after this interruption, I nodded at and thanked Mr. Tweak and walked back to the car, where I relayed everything to Clyde through the open passenger side window.

"Dude, did a cat just run out of the house?" he asked when I was done.

"Yeah, man, and there's two more inside."

"Well, fuck that, I don't want to swell up and sneeze my internal organs out, no thanks."

I thought so. Clyde is severely allergic to cats. I kind of am too, but it's pretty mild. I could probably handle this house for thirty minutes or so without dying.

"So what do you want to do?" I asked.

"I'm not going in there, man, but you're welcome to."

"You're just gonna wait in the car?"

"He's _your_ date, it's only polite if you're the one waiting in there." He paused, and then snapped his fingers. "Yes! Okay, you stay here; I'll go pick up Kevin. It should take the same amount of time."

"You're ditching me?"

"Get to know the future in-laws, man, have a ball." He shot at me with finger guns and winked.

I wanted to retort, wanted to tell him to take back in the in-law comment, wanted to flip him off, but he suddenly turned on the car, and I realized he was actually leaving me here. I panicked and began tugging on the car door handle, only to find out it was locked.

"Clyde! _Clyde_!"

I was going to reach through the window to unlock the door next, but he'd already driven off the curb, waving at me and wishing me good luck through that same open window.

When he had driven too far down the street for me to do anything about this, I was left with no choice but to turn around and trudge back up the walkway to the house. Upon looking up, I saw that Mr. Tweak was still standing where I left him, still staring at me with that fixed smile.

"Um." I jerked a thumb behind me in the direction Clyde had driven off in. "He'll be back."

Mr. Tweak nodded understandingly and took a few short and languid steps back, gesturing with a low sweeping hand wave for me to come in. As I did, he walked toward the back of the house, calling out, "hun, Tweek's little friend is here to pick him up."

Immediately, I noticed two things about the house I had just stepped in. One was that the place smelled like incense and cookies. I probably would have spared a moment to analyze or at least think about this, if not for the second thing I noticed, which was what I ended up tripping on. I didn't fall, but I did stumble forward a few feet, and when I whipped around to send a glare at whatever had offended me, I saw that it was a small plastic pink shopping cart. It had toppled over and there was fake plastic fruit all over the floor around it.

My gaze traveled all over the floor and I found more curious objects scattered about. There was a rag doll by the foot of the couch, toy cars on the bottom staircase step, plastic blocks and stuffed animals strewn everywhere. It was distracting enough that I barely noticed when Tweek's dad returned to the room, this time accompanied by the woman I remembered as being Tweek's mom. Like the last time I'd seen her, she still had her short brunette bob, still carried herself confidently, and still wore an apron, although this one was covered in tiny owls.

They were both smiling. Of course they were. I had thought Mr. Tweak's smiles were creepy, but when you added his wife to the mix, the pair of them together made me uneasy enough to feel like I'd just been lured here and was soon to be another unfortunate victim of cannibalism.

Tweek's mom approached me, and when she did, she actually _jingled_, I kid you not. Well, she herself didn't jingle; it was more like the bracelet of tiny bells on her wrist and the tiny bells on her owl-shaped earrings jingled. For a second, though, I actually believed I was maybe in the presence of a fairy or something, and I wouldn't have been particularly surprised to discover she was one.

She held out one of her hands (more jingling ensued here), and I thought she wanted to shake my hand. She took me by surprise, then, when she suddenly grabbed my wrist and jerked me forward, enveloping me into a hug that crushed me tightly against her.

I froze, tensing up almost instantly.

Hugs could not be farther from my area of expertise. In fact, they generally made me feel an intense kind of discomfort, and I didn't like engaging in them. I didn't want to offend, though, so, once my immediate shock had left me and I found the least awkward way to undo my arms from where they were pinned against my sides, I drew my hands around to her back and sort of patted her there, hoping that was sufficient enough to return the gesture.

However, the hug continued to persist for a few more long and uncomfortable seconds. Being that she was a she was a short woman, shorter than Tweek, and had insisted on bringing me to her level rather than craning against my chest, I was forced to spend the duration of this hug hunched over painfully.

"Hello, Craig. It's so nice to see you again," she said, and I found she has the most sweet, soft-spoken, kind-sounding voice I have ever heard out of another human being, and I guess that did some good in defusing the discomfort out of this hug that was lasting far too long. She also smelled kind of nice, like cinnamon and honey and also the faint scent of cigarettes, and it was nice in the sense that it reminded me of my grandma.

I nodded against her in response to her greeting and mumbled something stupid and polite in response. This was enough to get her to finally release me, but when I drew back, she grabbed my hands and held them both between hers as she talked.

"It's been so long. How are you, sweetheart? How's your family?"

"I'm fine, uh, family's peachy. Thanks for asking, Mrs. Tweak."

"Oh, honey, Maureen is okay. Or mom, you could call me that, too."

My mind instantly flashed back to Clyde's in-law comment from earlier, but I quickly tried to get rid of that thought when she added, "all the kids do."

"Kids?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, the kids that stay with us."

I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but if multiple kids were staying here, that would probably explain all the toys on the floor. I commented on this, going on to say, "I assumed you guys had other children or something."

"Not our own children," Mr. Tweak answered, and this really was not helping these two get any less creepy. "My wife runs a daycare out of our home."

"And it's completely licensed," Mrs. Tweak hastily added.

I didn't believe her, especially not when Mr. Tweak put a hand on her shoulder and muttered, "hun, people wouldn't wonder if you didn't mention that." I chose not to drag this segment of conversation out any further than I needed to.

"They're such angels," Mrs. Tweak continued with what I assumed was the intent of sweeping her last statement under the rug. "Ten of them at a time, between three and six. It's been so long since we've had little darlings pattering around our home. Not ever since Tweek was that age."

"With him at school all day and me at work, Maur's always looking for ways to entertain herself at home," Mr. Tweak said. "The daycare, yoga classes, pottery classes, embroidery and reading and scrap booking…"

"Oh, Richard, he doesn't want to hear any of that," Mrs. Tweak said with a laugh. "Are you hungry, sweetie, have you eaten?"

"I ate, yes," I answered quickly.

"I made cookies," she said, as if she hadn't heard me. "You must have one."

She released my hands (I immediately shoved them in my pants' pockets to prevent her from holding them again) and she turned around, reaching out for the plate of cookies I hadn't realized Mr. Tweak was holding. She extended it out for me, and I saw that they were sugar cookies, all shaped like animals and a few like people. I noted a few bears and giraffes and flamingoes right on top.

"No, thank you. I'm really not hungry," I insisted, keeping my hands in my pockets.

"Please take one. Just one." She shoved the plate closer in my face, smiling at me sweetly behind it.

She and Mr. Tweak had such a fixed and eager gaze on me that I was immediately compelled to give in and take one, hoping it would get them to stop. I had picked up a lion and began nibbling on it in tiny bites.

When it looked like they were still eagerly awaiting a verdict, I finally said, "it's good," even though it just tasted like any other sugar cookie, and I could _see_ them both clearly let out a sigh of relief.

Mrs. Tweak grabbed one herself from the plate, as did Mr. Tweak, and Mrs. Tweak began rambling off something about the recipe and how long it had taken her to make them and how often she usually bakes, but I couldn't focus on this because I was too distracted by the fact that the first bite made by the both of them was aimed specifically at decapitating the heads of the respective cookies in their hands. I had also noticed they had picked up the people-shaped cookies.

"What am I talking about this for?" Mrs. Tweak said as I watched them both finish off the cookies in their hands limb by limb. She handed the platter back to her husband, and with one of her free hands, she patted me tenderly on the cheek. "I know you must be waiting for Tweek. Please, sit down. He won't be much longer. He had just gotten out of the shower when you arrived."

She grabbed me by the arm and guided me over to the couch in the living room, where she encouraged me to take a seat. It was an old looking couch, Victorian-style, and I thought I might break it just by sitting down. It was a lot more comfortable than it looked, though, and I eased myself into the cushions easily.

"It's so sweet of you to be so friendly with my boy," Mrs. Tweak crooned, sitting near me and patting me on the thigh.

I moved an inch away, trying to make it look as subtle as I could. "He's a nice kid, I like hanging out with him."

"He told me you were the one who invited him to the dance," she continued, gazing at me with her eyes flooded in gratitude. "So good of you. He never does much on his own. He never would have gone of his own accord. It's just _so_ good of you."

I cleared my throat. "It's nothing, really."

Her smile widened. "And I'm sure he's very happy to see you again. He's missed you so much this whole time we've been away."

I felt a surge in the pit of my stomach. He'd _missed_ me? He'd never given any indication that I was _that_ important to him, but I must have been, right? Otherwise why would she say that?

I was concentrating on this too much to be able to form an answer to her words, which she didn't seem to mind. Instead, she patted me once or twice more on the back on my hand, then stood up suddenly, saying, "I'll go check on him and let him know you're here, alright? Richard." She turned, now addressing her husband from where he was still standing in the kitchen doorway where we'd left him. "Make Craig a cup of coffee, would you?"

"Oh, that's okay, I don't really care for coffee too much," I said quickly, remembering my last experience with this family and their coffee.

"That's alright, then. Tea perhaps? Richard!"

He nodded, still smiling, and walked back into the kitchen. Mrs. Tweak stroked the top of my hat with motherly affection, told me she'd be right back, then glided toward and up the staircase, leaving me completely alone in their living room.

I was good at waiting patiently, so this was not a problem, especially if it would prolong my time spent away from the never-ending smiles and the relentless touching. With this moment to myself, my eyes took in the rest of the room that I hadn't gotten a chance to really observe, and I found it to be just as curious (and thus fitting for) the family living here.

First of all, there was just this overabundance of certain things throughout the room, and I began to theorize that these people were a few trinkets away from being hoarders. One of these things was _owls_. There were so many fucking owls. The pillows and throw on this couch were embroidered with pictures of owls, there were plates and photos on the walls with pictures of owls, the lamp in the corner had owls dancing along the base, there were owl figurines on the tables and a whole shelf of them on display in the entertainment center. The most disturbing thing was the birdcage in the corner, inside of which was a very realistic looking owl. It wasn't alive, I was sure of that, but if not that, it _had_ to have been at some point.

I didn't like the way it was staring at me, so I looked away.

If there weren't a thousand owls surrounding me in this room, there were also quite a number of plants. It kind of made sense to have them inside since it's usually too cold outside to grow much there, but there were so many goddamn plants, it was halfway to being a nursery. Some were in large (handmade looking) pots in the corners of the room, some hung from the ceiling by the window, and there were tiny ones on many of the open surfaces. I recognized what a few of these plants were, bamboo and orchids, ferns and lilies. Others I had seen before, but had no clue what they were called. In a round green pot by the couch was one whose leaves looked like a group of snakes crawling against each other heavenward, and by the doorway to the kitchen was a plant whose bunches of leaves huddled together to collectively form what looked like tiny umbrellas. There was even a bonsai tree on the table in front of me.

Most of the furniture was old looking, although with no rhyme or reason to the way they had been picked out (some looked like they dated to the seventies, some to the 1800s, and of course the TV was completely modern). The wallpaper was a pea soup green, and there was this large Persian rug covering the floor.

It was like a funhouse, this place, completely random and with no agenda.

Mr. Tweak had returned before I could make any sort of assessment about the place and handed me the mug in his hand. The tea smelled nice, but the mug was hot, which I realized upon touching it, so I quickly set it down on the table. There was a picture of an owl on the side. Of course.

There was a second couch in the room and Mr. Tweak sat down on it. I had been dreading this, because obviously this meant I was in store for another weird conversation or a drawn out, awkward smile-filled silence. I sent silent mental pleas to Tweek to hurry the fuck up.

Sure enough, for the first minute, we both sat there without exchanging a single word, the only noises pervading between us being the ticking of a clock somewhere, the constant clearing of my throat, and the occasional sips I would take of the tea (which, by the way, smelled better than it tasted).

At one point, one of the cats trotted into the room. It leaped onto the couch I was sitting on, and I stared at it, hoping it wouldn't get anywhere closer to me. I think it could tell that I wasn't advocating any of his company, so he darted along the back of the couch, leapt onto the one Mr. Tweak was on, and curled up in his lap. Mr. Tweak began petting it instantly, the action emulating that of an evil dictator.

Then he spoke.

Mr. Tweak, not the cat.

"You look nice, son."

"Uh, thank you."

His expression softened. "How often are you with my boy?"

The question caught me off guard. "How often?" I repeated. He nodded. "Most days. I see him at school, we hang out on weekends." I paused. "He doesn't mention it?"

"He doesn't mention _us_, does he?"

I shook my head, conceding his point.

"Doesn't tell you _much_, either?"

There was something in his tone, and I glanced up at him, meeting his eyes. Something flickered in them, something halfway between accusatory and curious, but before I could answer, he said, "me neither."

His words resonated with me long after he spoke them, and they still do, because they were true, and the fact that they were true and he knew they were true was odd. At the time, though, I hadn't thought much of them. He was just a weird man; I'd long since accepted that.

"Do you remember what I told you in the shop a few weeks ago?"

"Um, which part?"

"The part about staying close to him."

_What I told you_, he'd said. _Told_, not asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Have you?"

I thought we'd covered that. With the last question.

"Yes, sir."

"Do you take care of him?"

My stomach turned at the wording. This had the potential to be particularly loaded, so I thought carefully before responding. "He doesn't really let me."

At this, Mr. Tweak smirked. Like, a legitimate smirk, not the high-induced smiles he'd been giving me this whole time.

"Sounds like him." He even chuckled a little. "Listen, he's a firecracker, that one. Don't let the things he says bother you. Half the time he doesn't even know what he's talking about."

I nodded. What else was there to say to that? And I'd given up on expecting anything but cryptic statements out of this family.

Fortunately for me, before this strange man could say anything more on the subject, I heard a door slamming upstairs just in time. Shortly after, I caught movement in the corner of my eye and glanced upward to catch the sight of Mrs. Tweak and then Tweek descending the staircase. She glided, of course, as she does, but Tweek looked impatient, slightly angry, and he kept fidgeting and tugging at his clothes.

It was a very bizarre moment, me watching Tweek walk down the stairs. I think it's because I knew why he was coming down here: for the dance I'd asked him to attend, for _me, _and that, otherwise, he might have spent this Saturday night cooped up in his room. It had never fully set in that this was actually happening, so in the same moment he locked eyes with me and all the anger fled from his face, I felt my stomach plummet.

I couldn't believe I was actually going through with this.

I couldn't believe I was going to a motherfucking _dance_ with this kid, this kid I'd had a crush on for weeks.

I couldn't believe I had a crush on this boy at all, this boy I haven't seen in years.

If I had told myself a few years ago that what was happening was going to happen, I wouldn't have believed myself.

I felt like throwing up.

Thankfully, as if to save me from my own projectile vomiting, Tweek let out a small noise, snapping me out of my reverie, though I chose not to make eye contact. Not again.

"Sorry!" he cried. "Sorry I'm late, _sorry_!"

"It's okay, dude." I got to my feet and chanced a fleeting look at his person. The clothes Red had picked out for him were simple, completely betraying the type of person they were adorning. His pants were black, his jacket was black, his thin square-end tie was black. The only thing that wasn't black was the shirt he wore underneath the jacket. It was the same plaid colors as my bow tie. "Ready to go?"

I wanted to compliment him, because he did look nice, but I couldn't so I didn't.

He held a finger up, telling me to wait, then ran into the kitchen. When he returned, he was holding a light blue flower attached to a pin.

"I thought it would be appropriate, since you asked me to come!" He moved forward to pin it to the lapel of my jacket. "That isn't weird, is it?"

I shook my head, not making a sound, and forced myself to smile down at him.

He smiled, too, and stepped back, admiring it sitting there against my chest. "I, um, didn't want to buy one since it was just for fun. My mom has this plant growing in our kitchen!"

_Just for fun_, he said, and here was I, still owing Kevin money for the one I had actually bought from him.

I don't suppose he was feeling the same nauseous feelings I was feeling when he walked down the stairs and saw me. I don't suppose this was as big a deal.

Outside, a car honked. I told Tweek that it was Clyde, and he strode toward the door, wrenching it open for me to walk out first.

"Aren't you going to say, er, goodbye or anything?" I asked under my breath, making fleeting glances at his parents.

He rolled his eyes, but didn't object. With a quick turn of his head, he curtly muttered, "bye," and held up a hand. His mother waved and smiled, as did his dad, but neither said a word.

He slammed the door behind us so hard that the outside light flickered, and if I hadn't already been extra quiet than normal, I wouldn't have said a word to him about anything.

Just as I said, Clyde's car was waiting for us out there, and Kevin was next to him in the front seat. Even though we were already standing outside, he honked a few more times, trying to mimic the sounds of "The Mexican Hat Dance" and failing miserably.

When we reached his car, I opened the door to let Tweek in first.

I couldn't tell if he was still peeved from what happened with his parents a second ago, but he did not like that I did that. In fact, he sent a glare my way, informed me, "I can open car doors myself," and walked all the way around and went in on the other side.

I sighed, my hand still on the door handle and the door still wide open. When I glanced at him sitting in there on the other side of the backseat, struggling to buckle his seatbelt, I instantly pictured myself in there next to him, sitting out the whole ride to Denver in awkward and tense silence, all yearnings to make a move nagging at me and me doing nothing about it. It was making me feel sick again.

So instead of getting inside, I left the door open and walked over to the passenger side of the front seat. Kevin waved up at me and smiled, but I seized open the door and said, "get out."

His smile faltered and his hand fell, but he'd dealt with my bossiness and bullying long enough to not even be fazed. Clyde didn't even protest when he unbuckled his seatbelt and stepped out, standing on the sidewalk next to me.

Then I got a good look at him.

He was wearing a Jedi robe. He even had one of his authentic movie prop lightsabers attached by a holster on his belt.

"You're really going to wear that?" I asked, eyeing him.

He shrugged, smiling a little. "For the most part, yeah." He undid a part of the robe, though, and revealed normal dress clothes underneath: a light blue vest, a red tie, white shirt, and black pants.

"Well, at least Clyde won't be the only one looking ridiculous at the dance," I mumbled, pushing past him to slide into the front seat.

"Sure, maybe," he continued. "But why not? You gotta live a little once in awhile, y'know? Not be afraid of the consequences."

I grunted and buckled myself in.

"Here." Just before he got into the back seat, he thrust a plastic carton in my face.

I grabbed it instantly, closing the door behind me as I examined the object in my hand. It was the boutonnière, a white carnation dyed a light green, just as I had asked.

I set it on the floor by my feet, rested my elbow against the window and my face against my fist, and stared out the window in silence for the entire ride.

* * *

Parking was terrible when we arrived, forcing us to walk two blocks just to get to the place. That wasn't so bad, I guess, since the aquarium is right by a river and we got to walk alongside it on the way there. However, by the time we got there, we found out that there was already a horribly long line leading out the door. That's what we got for getting there on time. If we'd waited a half an hour or so, everyone would have already been in and we could have just waltzed in, but _no_, Clyde seemed to think it was necessary for us to get here exactly at eight.

Being that I have the patience of a Buddhist monk when it comes to waiting, you'd think lines would be something I can handle, and generally, they are. At places like amusement parks or midnight movie premieres, I'm usually the one who gets stuck with waiting in the lines while Token and Clyde go buy corn dogs or go to the bathroom. Because, you see, the waiting itself is not the issue. I can wait. I love waiting. It's the people that I cannot stand.

This was a line for an event I did not want to be at and it was a line filled with people I hated. This was not a good combination of things. In fact, all these annoying inconveniences up to this point were simply affirming my growing reluctance to be here.

As expected, Clyde made me save our spot in line while he and Kevin left and roamed around, looking for people they knew. Tweek stayed with me, of course, and I could tell by the look on his face that he was as comfortable with this as I was. I wanted to say something to him, make small talk or provide some meager amount of entertainment for the poor kid, distract him from how overwhelming this all was. But I couldn't. Just looking at him made me feel queasy. So we remained silent, me holding the camera case in my left hand while Tweek's fists rested at his side, both of us willing this thing to move so we could stop feeling so fucking awkward and claustrophobic or risk the chance of someone we knew but didn't like approaching us.

That did not work so well. At least not for me, anyway. I didn't want to see anyone and I didn't want anyone to see me, but people kept walking by and recognizing me and pointing at me and I _knew_ why. it was because Craig Tucker was at a social event of his own accord, and that probably meant the Mayan calendar was right and the end of days was upon us.

I kind of shrunk away, feeling stupid and hating it, wanting to tell these people to stop fucking _looking at me_, but before I acted upon this, Token showed up. This was good because he had a whole entourage with him, and when he joined us in the line, they kind of surrounded me like a human shield. Of course, they were all of Red's girl friends and their dates, so I couldn't avoid their confused stares and demanding questions of, "what the fuck are _you_ doing here," but I realized I needed to take a few of these hits if I wanted to protect myself from everyone else.

Red's circle of friends included people like Esther and Sally and Annie and a few other girls I didn't know. I didn't know any of their dates either, since some of them were either athletes or from other grades. So while I didn't enjoy being a spectacle for them, at least I didn't actually _know_ some of these people. Red also did a fine job of controlling them and getting me off their minds, and I thought that was kind of rather nice of her.

So I paid her a compliment.

"You were right. Bangin' dress indeed."

I wasn't lying. It really was pretty hot on her, and I mean that in the way a guy with no attraction to a girl can appreciate that she actually looks really nice. She looked like she stepped out of an '80's movie, but she was totally rocking the look. It was short purple number, classy, with a loose neckline hanging off her shoulders and lacy ruffles at the bottom.

The rest of her looked nice, too, with the soft gold and purple touches to her eye makeup, her deep purple lipstick, all the gold accessories she wore. Even her hair looked nice, although she had it spiked in the back and curling up against her scalp in the front.

At my words, she winked at me and grinned. "You look pretty sharp yourself. Both of you do. Compliments to whoever dolled you both up."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, she can be a real bitch sometimes, but she really pulled through."

Red smiled.

It took another thirty minutes before the line actually started moving, but move it did and after another ten or so minutes, we finally made it in.

I have only been to the Denver Aquarium twice in my life, once when I was in the third grade for a field trip and once more with Token and Clyde for fun during freshman year, when it finally got bought by a seafood company and was renamed the Downtown Aquarium. Being that I haven't been in awhile, I was looking forward to getting a good look at the place. I like animals, I like sea animals; it was a good place.

Unfortunately, the moment we walked in we were violently hit with a pulsating wave of bass beats and the piercing buzzing of synthesizer, not to mention temporarily blinded by strobes and quickly changing colored lights.

I already had a headache.

The center of activity was the main room right in front of us. It was sort of like a lobby, and I knew there was a cafe here and that tables were usually scattered about. They were gone now, cleared off to the other side of the room to make space for the dance floor, which I only surmised since the DJ was already set up and blasting his shitty music. Red got really excited and excused herself to go talk to him. Her other girl friends dragged their dates over to the tables to go deposit their shit (purses, shawls, shoes).

That left my friends and I still standing by the entrance. Oh, and Kevin was there too, but I guess was working himself up to being an honorary friend.

Like an excited dog being kept on a short leash, Clyde kept staring around with wide excited eyes, and I would wager that if he had a tail, it would have been wagging frantically. He kept glancing between the dance floor, the karaoke room, the available females in the room, as if unsure of where to start first.

I watched his eyes zeroed in on the food table.

"Don't take your eyes off him," I reminded Token out of the side of my mouth.

"I am off duty tonight, my friend," Token said, grinning. "I am here with a pretty lady. Clyde is not my problem.

Sure enough, as if on cue, Token's pretty lady returned, informed him of her song choice inputs, then dragged him to the dance floor, him winking at us as they hurried off

Clyde had already long since wandered off and had dragged Kevin along with him. I remembered that these two do a good job of enabling one another when it comes to pranks and troublemaking, so of course I had to follow them.

I turned to Tweek and, in a few words, explained where I was going, all without actually looking at him. Not wanting to be left alone, he had no choice but to follow me.

By the time we had reached the table, Clyde had already stuffed about four or five cookies in his mouth and was working on stuffing in two more. Kevin seemed to be cheering him on, so I assumed that the intent here was to shove as many in there before he choked himself.

I rolled my eyes and was just about to make a comment about what a fucking pig he was being, but before I got a chance to, I suddenly heard an undesirably familiar voice nearby say, "Stumpy, you made it!"

I don't think Kenny needs any introduction.

He was standing a few feet away and walking toward us when I whipped around to find where the source of his voice was coming from. There was little time for me to react before he snatched the fingers of my empty hand out of thin air and intertwined them securely between his own.

"You look lovely, sweetheart, absolutely ravishing," he crooned patronizingly, swinging our linked hand between us and laughing when I seized mine back. "Absolutely ravish_able_, you could say."

"Stay the fuck away from me."

He laughed again, louder and harder. "What else am I going to do for fun? There's no motherfucking punch bowl at this shindig." He gestured at the table, which was littered with cheap junk food and soda cans, but no punch. "Least cliché prom ever. What am I supposed to spike now? This thing is gonna be _boring_. I need you, Stumps."

"Go hang out with Cartman."

"I'm probably going to have to," Kenny muttered, slightly annoyed. "Well, okay, if you won't hang out with me, how about _you_, Tweek? You're looking pretty cute yourself, dude."

Tweek twitched, looking surprised to be addressed. "Craig looks better than I do!"

My stomach turned, and Kenny snorted in amusement.

"He does look nice, doesn't he?" He drifted his fingers lightly along the fabric of my jacket, trailing up my upper arm. I shuddered away from him and he grinned. "Just admiring the digs, dude, relax."

Though I didn't believe him, it was a reasonable enough excuse. He wasn't poorly dressed, but the tux he was wearing was generic and obviously rented or borrowed. It certainly looked worn. I may not have been the most affluent person in the room, but I was a billionaire compared to Kenny, and my clothes reflected that.

"Why so nice, Stumpy?" he continued. In a lower voice, one no one but I could hear, he muttered, "aiming to impress, I see."

I wanted to punch him, I really did, wanted to send him flying. He hadn't even said anything worth such a reaction from me, but as a result of the way I've been feeling all night up until this point, I really just needed to punch _something_.

I didn't punch Kenny, though, and I didn't get to answer his question.

Stan and Wendy had walked up behind him, and they both looked sickeningly adorable and picture perfect, her with her lavender-colored gown and him with his matching tie and pristine black and white suit. Even their hair was perfect and shiny. They were a good-looking couple, and I loathed them more than I ever had before.

"You _do_ look nice, Craig," Wendy said, but it hadn't come out in the tone of a compliment. Her nose was kind of upturned when she said it, like I had offended her by dressing the way I was.

"Thanks?"

"What are you doing here, man?" Stan asked, and I think that was kind of what Wendy was implying in her statement. I looked like I was here for a dance, and Stan knew as well as I did that this was something that I would not be caught doing unless I was under the influence of some drug.

I was about to inform him of what exactly I was doing here, but Wendy beat me to it.

"He's filming. For yearbook." She shot a stern look in my direction. "You weren't supposed to dress up. You're not a guest, you're working."

"Well, unless you want me to strip right here next to the food table, I think it's a little late for that."

She let out a heavy sigh, shaking her head, but when she didn't have a retort for that, I knew I had won. I smirked at her silence, and she narrowed her eyes at me. "You don't even have the camera out."

"How do you know I wasn't about to?"

"You better have been. I'm expecting good footage out of you, Craig Tucker, so don't disappoint me."

She grabbed Stan by the arm and took off, stalking by me without sparing a glance in my direction. Stan shrugged apologetically, and waved, following her as she tugged him to the dance floor.

Sighing and rolling my eyes, I lugged the bag onto the nearest empty table, and removed the camera from the inside. It wasn't a fantastic model. Mine was nicer. But for this occasion? It would do.

"What are you doing?" Kenny asked quietly, watching me. It wasn't a curious question. It was an accusatory one.

"I am following the orders of my lord and master, Wendy Testaburger."

"No, what are you doing filming for yearbook? I thought you were here as Tweek's date. That's why you two are here together, right?"

I slammed a hand down on the table I was at and turned my head to glare at him. "Look. This _isn't_ a motherfucking date. We're friends, goddammit, the two of us can do whatever we fucking well please."

Kenny frowned. He did not like that answer. In fact, I'm pretty sure Kenny did not like that this was not going according to his fairytale plan for the two of us.

"Well, good thing he took off with Clyde a few seconds ago."

"What." I whipped around. Sure enough, neither those two nor Kevin were anywhere in sight.

"He left around the time Wendy said you weren't a guest."

I pressed the palms of my hand against my eyes, groaning and muttering curses.

"It's fine, though, isn't it? Y'know, since this isn't a date and you two can do whatever you want."

I wanted to shoot something back at him, something witty and sarcastic and scathing. I didn't have it in me to, though, and when I removed my palms, I saw that Kenny had walked off too.

That was fine. That was perfect. Fucking _peachy_. I preferred being alone. I preferred being alone and behind a video camera. This was a normal thing for me. I just happened to be in the worst place imaginable, but that was fine.

So I did what Wendy wanted. I did my motherfucking job. I booted up the bitch of a camera, and I wandered around this hellhole, capturing and immortalizing on film the biggest gathering of people I hated on the planet. I shot video of couples filing in through the front door, forced to acknowledge and make myself known to anyone and everyone that walked in.

Later, I found the area with the gambling, a designated corner of the place where tables were set up with poker and blackjack and my underage classmates entertained themselves before another round at the dance floor. At one point, I made my way to the karaoke room, and I wasn't surprised to find Butters up there, hogging the microphone and singing along (badly) to the Black Eyed Peas. Clyde was in there, too, with Kevin, but no Tweek. He saw me, and instantly ran up to the stage, snatching the mic away from Butters and pointing at me. If everyone in the room hadn't already seen me, they had now.

"Craig, _Craig_, Kelly Clarkson, right here, right now!" The way he slurred his speech made me think that Kenny had somehow found a way to get his alcohol to the masses.

I immediately turned around and left.

"Someone get that boy a drink!"

When the crowds got denser and more active, I even dared trailing around on the edge of the large group on the dance floor, disgusted at the way they grinded and touched each other in there. It looked like an octopus orgy set to badly remixed hip-hop, but I had to stand there and film it all. Once in awhile a girl would come by and ask me if I wanted to dance, and I would always flip her off. A couple of times girls would come by and, recognizing me as the kid that usually hangs around Clyde, would complain about him to me, as if I was his caretaker.

"Would you mind telling Donovan that his pick-up lines didn't work when they were invented and they _won't_ work now?"

"Is that what he's doing," I murmured in response.

Sure enough, when I looked around the room for him later, I found him near enough to hear him drunkenly recall to a slightly repulsed girl, "do you know karate? Because your body is really _kickin'!"_

He had even kicked in the air when he said it.

When about two hours or so had passed, I found myself on the second level of the building, leaning over a railing and watching the mob of people directly below me moving and sliding against each other in rhythm with the music. I had originally come up here to get an interesting angle (I mean, if I was going to be doing this, I might as well do it right), but had long since given up on that, the camera sitting unused by my feet.

"You look like you're enjoying yourself," a voice said beside me. When I glanced over, I saw that it was Kenny.

"Fuck off."

"Now, I'm going to ask you again, and you're going to really think about this question before you answer me." He leaned closer. "What. Are. You. Doing."

I knew exactly what he was referring to, but I didn't want to make things easy for him. "It's no big deal, alright? I'm sure he doesn't even care that I'm not around."

"I think you're doing this on purpose."

"_Red_ landed me this gig, sorry I forgot to mention that before you started pointing fingers."

"Yeah, well I'm sure you're fucking pleased."

I stared at him. "Why would I be pleased? _Why_ would I be fucking _pleased_ that that little shit makes me feel sick to my goddamn stomach and I can't even be around him because I don't know what to _do_ with that feeling?"

"Because you're scared."

I wanted to say that I wasn't, as I had the first time he'd accused me of this. I wanted to do all the horrible things I've always wanted to do to Kenny. I wanted to do exactly what Clyde had expected out of me when I'd told him I was going to this stupid event and burn down the building.

But even if I could, I wouldn't have.

He was right, after all. Of course I was scared. I was fucking terrified, and why wouldn't I be?

Neither of us had to say anything more on the matter, so we just stood there in silence, side to side, leaning over the banister and watching the dance floor.

Kenny only broke it to offer to take over the yearbook cam for me.

I think he knew exactly what I was thinking. So I let him.

I didn't know where I was going when I wandered away from him. My aim had been away from the main room, though, far away, to the part of the aquarium I had yet to visit: the exhibits. This place had a lot of those, I discovered. One dedicated to North America, another to the rainforest. I passed tanks of eels and seahorses, of jellyfish and sharks, of seals and otters, and, of course, a multitude of fish.

I had found him exactly where I thought I'd find him, although I had no idea what pulled us both here.

Sitting on a wooden bench, the luminescent glow of the tank in front of him painting his entire person with aqua-blue radiance, was Tweek. In front of him was an entire tank filled with nothing but stingrays, bat rays, and manta rays, swimming in flocks around one another with such a grace that it was almost a dance. The way the light reflected off them, too, made them look almost unreal, more like a dream or a painting than what was really right in front of me.

I couldn't help but stop where I was standing to stare at them, too. They were beautiful, so beautiful that it distracted me from him and distracted me from my inevitable nausea.

Then my eyes left the rays for a moment, landing on his back again, and I remembered why I was here.

Without a sound, I slowly walked up behind him and slid onto the bench. I thought he was going to freak out when he noticed I was there, but he didn't. It was like he knew I was coming.

"You know," I said suddenly. "There's a place here where you can touch them."

"Like a _touch_ _tank_?" he asked.

I knew enough about sarcasm to know not to answer such rhetorical questions.

"We could go see it," I said instead.

"They're closed right now!"

"We can come back." I cleared my throat. "Together. If you want."

He said nothing. I didn't know what to say either, so we sat in silence a little longer, still gazing at the tank. After a few seconds, the rays fell out of focus in my vision, and I zeroed in on the reflection in the glass, the reflection of the two of us sitting there just outside the gallons of water, side by side on this bench.

"I'm, um, I'm glad you came with me. To this."

He snapped his head around to stare at me in disbelief. "You sure have a funny way of showing it!"

"I—I'm just sc—" My stomach turned at the thought of this word coming out of my mouth, so I didn't let it. "I'm sorry."

He turned away from me, gazing down at his shoes as he scooted them against the carpet. I stared down at mine and scuffed them around, too.

"How've you been?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Clyde wanted me to sing with him and dance with them all, but I didn't. I just watched." He paused. "You?"

"I now have video proof that our entire class is a bunch of horny morons, but I didn't really need to witness this to know that. In short, this dance blows hardcore."

A small, toothless grin crossed his lips.

"Hey, do you want to bail?" I asked, nudging him with my elbow.

His eyes widened. "W-what? You mean leave early?"

"Yeah, why the hell not? Neither of us are having fun, and I doubt there's much we can do here to improve that."

"But what about Clyde?"

"He's not going to want to come." I glanced down at my wristwatch and saw that it had just turned to eleven o'clock. "I figured I'd get sick of this place pretty quick, so I looked up bus schedules online before we came, and there's one that leaves in about twenty minutes."

"Where's the nearest bus station?"

"At the corner of this block."

I watched him as he remained silent, his eyebrows furrowed in thought. He was considering my proposal hard, I could tell, and he knew just as well as I did that it was incredibly appealing.

At long last, he nodded.

Before either of us got up, I took out my phone and texted Clyde and Token, telling them our plan and hoping they would see the text before they tried looking for us. At the last minute, I texted Kenny too, and told him to wish me luck.

Finally, I eased to my feet, and turned around, offering Tweek a hand to stand up. I regretted it almost immediately, because I thought he was going to get offended by me helping him again. But he didn't. He grabbed it and let me tug him off his ass, and we both began walking off together.

My hand, still clutching his, lingered there for longer than necessary, long enough so that we walked two or three feet and still held one another. We had to release it at some point, of course, but I walked close to him, and in a manner that could have easily been mistaken as accidental, kept brushing the back of my hand against his, my fingers itching for his warmth.

He didn't say a word about it and neither did I.

* * *

The bus ride back took about two hours, so it was half past one in the morning by the time we reached the stop back in South Park. The two of us had sat in the very back, with Tweek close to the window. We didn't talk much. He stared outside the whole time, and I played around with my fingers, not knowing what else to do.

When the bus stopped and the two of us stepped out, I whirled around to address him.

"Do you need to be home now?"

He shook his head, looking slightly puzzled.

"I want to take you somewhere."

I was grateful that he didn't ask me to elaborate. I'm sure he wanted to. He's always suspicious of anything I tell him. For whatever reason, right now, he trusted me.

We walked in silence for ten or so minutes, me guiding and him following, and we didn't stop until we reached the end of Main Street.

Right outside Johnson's Grocer.

I pulled out the ring of keys from my pocket, grinned mischievously at Tweek, then went to go unlock the front door.

I had been planning this the entire night. I had been planning this for a long time, actually, playing with the idea in my idle times at the store. It was going to happen no matter what. I'd packed the keys in the camera case. I'd told Clyde I was going to do this. Getting to this point was not thought out, but just so long as we got here, that was what was important.

The bell above the door jingled when we opened it, and the store was dark when we walked in, save for the street lamps outside that illuminated it in pockets. I explained to Tweek that I wasn't technically supposed to be here at night, so we couldn't turn on the lights. He nodded, although I saw a bit of fear in his eyes. I assured him that the place was safe, but he got indignant about that, insisting, "I _know_ that!" I chuckled and conceded.

The two of us walked through the store, passing most of the aisles as I guided us to the right one. With every step I took, I was feeling a more intense mixture of dread and what I supposed was giddiness. Every time I heard my squeakers squeak against the linoleum, they were continuously and immediately accompanied by the unique set of squeaking trotting along behind me. No one else walked like that to make that particular patten in their steps, and the sound of it was constantly reminding me of who exactly was with me here in the store at twenty minutes to two in the fucking morning, following me along like a goddamn puppy, placing his absolute trust wherever I led him. In my giddy stupor, I was convinced that if I stuck my hand out behind me, he would have grabbed it automatically. The only reason I didn't is because my palms were a tad sweaty from nervousness and he'd probably freak out at the touch.

When we got to where I wanted to go, I stopped and he did, too, next to me. He glanced up at the aisle number.

"Aisle ten…?" he asked, looking at my quizzically.

I straighten my face into an expression of utmost seriousness, like a kid who's about to confide the secret password of his clubhouse

"This is my favorite aisle."

He took one look at the seriousness on my face and began laughing. I laughed, too, and the two of us walked into the aisle together.

"You wanna see something cool?" I asked, smiling faintly.

Not waiting for a response, I disappeared down the aisle, heading straight for the register. I reappeared a few seconds later, slightly out of breath from having ran, and slid to a stop near him.

Instantly, I grabbed both his hands.

You might call me bold, and, trust me, under normal circumstances, it would have taken me ages to come up with the courage to do so. But I reasoned to myself that I had already made it this far, that I couldn't stop now, and I was basically pushing myself to do any and everything without thinking.

He was as taken aback by my gesture as maybe I would have been in my right state of mind.

"Red taught me this. Tell me if you think I'm doing this right."

Suddenly, over the store's PA system, the instrumentals and vocals of the Nat King Cole song flooded out and over us. I began counting under my breath and then moved, from memory, in the way Red had taught me.

Tweek didn't know how to react to this, I don't think. He squirmed under my grip and made small nervous noises. When I began stepping forward, he stumbled in response.

"I don't know what the fuck I'm doing!" he cried, shaking his head.

"Just follow me, okay, I'll keep it slow."

And I did. As slow as I could, I stepped forward and back, occasionally side to side. He caught on much faster that I had the first time I learned it, and soon I was able to swing him out on my arm and improvise, as I had done with my sister.

The song was only two minutes and forty seconds long, so when it ended shortly thereafter, I twirled him and let him spin me, and finished off with an awkward, not so graceful abrupt stop. It was still ridiculous, the thought of us doing what we just did, so we doubled over in laughter, our hands plastered over our mouths, muffling our giggles.

"Red taught you to do that?" he said between giggles, sounding like he didn't believe me.

"Yeah, well, it's a dance, I figured I might as well try it. I'm a natural, aren't I?"

"Um, I'm just glad you decided to show that off here and not where everyone could see it."

When we'd stopped laughing long enough to both catch our breaths, I told for him to take a seat by the Coco Puffs. I went back to the register to go turn off my iPod, then returned to sit right down in front of him.

Without saying anything, I reached out behind him and pulled out a box, ripping open the top with one hand and tugging open the bag inside.

I held it out to him. "Bon appetite."

He stared at it like I was offering him illegal drugs. "You can't just do that, man!"

"Why not? I work here, I'll just take it out of my paycheck." I pushed the box at him. "Come on. I didn't get a chance to take you out for dinner. Let me check all the clichés off my list."

His eyes lingered on the box for a few more minutes, but when it was clear that I was not going to ease up, he accepted it. I grinned, then reached for the shelf behind me and grabbed a box of Cap'n Crunch, opening that two. We bumped our boxes together like wine glasses, then, at the same time, dove our hands in and began eating.

Neither of us intended to eat the entirety of our boxes, but we made pretty impressive dents before we both got sick. The last time I stuck my hand in the box, my fingers felt something that didn't feel like Cap'n Crunch, and when I pulled it out, it was a plastic ring with a fake jewel.

"Look at that," I said, holding it out in front of his face. His eyes widened. "For your collection, yeah?"

He didn't accept it right away. Instead, he stared at me, studying my face. He didn't say anything either when he did finally take it, instead turning it around between his fingers and staring at it.

"So, I covered dinner, dancing," I muttered, counting them off on my fingers. I stuck my tongue out of the corner of my mouth, and glanced up thoughtfully. "What else am I missing?"

I knew what I was missing. I don't care enough to plan things often, so when I actually bother to do so, I'm thorough. There was no way I could forget.

I didn't want him to know just how well-thought out this was.

"Ah." I leapt to my feet. "Wait here. Again."

"Where are you going?" he demanded, frowning. What did I tell you? Perpetually suspicious.

"Dude, just trust me. Two minutes."

I darted down the aisle toward the back room, and just to prove that I was sincere, I came back in exactly the estimated amount of time.

In my hand was Token's ukulele.

Of all the things Tweek had looked puzzled about that evening, this one appeared to be the most surprising.

I slid to settle down next to him, taking care to press non-awkwardly up against him.

"Remember this?" I asked, wiggling it in midair.

"You still have that?"

"Fuck yeah. I've been practicing." I strummed casually, peering at the look of subtle wonder on his face as he watched my fingers.

"Are you still playing nursery songs?" he mumbled, striving to look unimpressed.

I kept strumming absentmindedly, baiting him for the magic words. "Nope, I learned a little more than that. YouTube videos are more instructive than you'd imagine."

"You can't just say that and not expect me to want to hear it!"

Bingo.

I chuckled. "Jeez, so demanding."

My strumming became gradually less absentminded and my hand found the frets. Chords came out. There were about five of them. It'd taken weeks to memorize, but I had, and they were coming out pretty well. It wasn't perfect, but a melody was starting to form shape, at least.

Then came the words.

"_Guess this means you're sorry. You're standing at my door—"_

"Holy shit, you're gonna sing, too?" Tweek cried, his tone bathed with all the amusement in the world.

"Shut the fuck up, let me play." I kept strumming, and his face began to light up when he realized what I was playing.

"_Guess this means you take back, what you said before._"

I could see his features contorting with the desire to laugh, but he resisted, slamming his hands over his lips. I wanted to laugh too, to be quite honest, and I was more than beyond the point where I could stop, had I possessed any regret at this point.

So I kept going.

"_Like how much you wanted anyone but me. Said you'd never come back, but here you are again."_

My voice was not fabulous. It was nasally and obnoxious. I don't think I was ever meant to sing, not this song, not any.

But I had to make it to the chorus at least. I think he was waiting for it just as much as I was.

"_Because we belong together now. Forever united here somehow. You've got a piece of me, and honestly, my life would suck without you~" _

The laugh that erupted out of him was unlike anything I had ever heard out of him before. It was like a shriek and a cackle had a baby together. He was bent over, his shoulders shaking, holding his sides, and when he lifted his head, tears glistened in the corner of his eyes and in a trail across his cheek.

"Don't _laugh_," I snapped, although I was only feigning anger. "This is fucking poetry, you little shit, pay some fucking attention."

This only made him laugh harder.

But I couldn't stop now.

"_Maybe I was stupid for telling you goodbye. Maybe I was wrong for trying to pick a fight._

"_I know that I've got issues, but you're pretty messed up, too. Anyway I found out, I'm nothing without yo~oo~ou~" _

"I can't breathe!" he screamed. "Stop! _Stop!"_

I don't think I could have gone on much longer, either. The chorus repeated itself after that, I was pretty sure, but I think I'd made my point. So I put the ukulele down, and watched him fight his fit of giggles, finding myself laughing too just because the sound was so infectious.

It took three whole minutes for us to control ourselves.

"Kelly Clarkson?" he said in half a sob, rubbing at his damp eyes with the back of his hand. "Are you fucking _serious_? Is this a dream?"

I shook my head, smiling but not saying anything further.

"Clyde would have killed to hear that, y'know," he added, still biting his lip to keep himself from laughing again.

"I know."

The seriousness in my tone, the absence of embarrassment or laughter or regret in my face, the combination of all these things woke something up in Tweek. Any trace of amusement left his face. He put on his suspicious frown again and leaned forward, staring at me intently.

"Why?" he asked. "Why would you do that?"

"Clyde said I would, didn't he?" I picked up the uke again and began strumming it absentmindedly. "That I'd only sing something like that for you? He was right."

"Um, you didn't have to, y'know," Tweek said in a low voice. "That's the last thing you would ever want to do. I don't know what you're trying to prove."

"Yeah, it's a stupid song and pretty embarrassing." I shrugged. "Doesn't make it any less true."

"What's true?"

"Everything."

He was still frowning, and I mentally counted down the seconds in my head. It had taken exactly twenty-two before something clicked on his face, and his eyes widened.

"What are you saying?"

"Don't make me sing it again. I don't think either of us could handle any more of that genius lyric-writing."

"Stop it! Tell me what the fuck this is about!"

I sighed.

It was now or never.

"It's cheesy as fuck, but I gotta say: every word of that song is how I feel about you."

I couldn't look at him when I said it. Nothing in the entire world would have made either of those two things possible at the same time.

We were both silent for a long time after that. I know we have bouts of silence more times than not, but this one was unlike any other that I felt before. It was terrible in its length, torturous and sickening, and, like a nervous tick, I kept strumming, filling the space with sound, with anything that would remind me that this was really happening.

It took him five whole minutes to do so, but he finally reacted.

Instead of responding, which would have been perfectly acceptable to me since I was just glad he was still here and hadn't run away, he put his hand out, gripped mine, the one on the ukulele body, and halted my strumming.

For all the calm and reserved bastard I was trying to be, nothing in the world could have enabled me to stay cool and collected when Tweek leaned forward in that next second. I sucked in the sharpest breath, feeling my cheeks heat up and my stomach churn, and the kid, goddammit, he leaned close to me in the dark of the grocery store, aisle ten, with the only light coming from the light post outside so that I could see the glow outline of his face and the bright whites of his eyes—he leaned forward and pressed his lips on mine. Sweetly, softly, so chastely, but the innocence and beauty of it all made it the greatest fucking experience I had ever had the pleasure of encountering.

…at least, that's what I'd like to say happened. I'd like to say he leaned in to kiss me, admitted that he had similar feelings for me too, that he'd wanted me so bad for so long and he'd been waiting all this time for this moment. I'd like to say every overused and overdone sickeningly sweet romantic thing had happened in this moment. I'd like to say the movies were right, that love really did work like that in the real world.

I'd like to say at least that he hadn't done what he'd actually done.

Everything up until him putting his hand out to stop me playing had actually happened. The light outside was also present. But instead of reflecting off his teeth or eyeballs or cheekbones, they reflected off the spikes of his blonde hair, his head bowed over almost apologetically.

"Why are you doing this?" he said finally, his voice cracking, weak, strained, and it was the last thing I wanted to hear after I'd just made myself more vulnerable than I ever had in my entire life.

I stopped breathing at that moment, not for any particular reason, only because I _couldn't_ breathe. I could feel my face heat up. My stomach churned. The nausea returned. I began to panic.

The _plan_, what happened to the plan, this was not part of the plan, this was not right. If this were a movie, this would be the part where the director stomps on set yelling, "cut! cut!" before chastising Tweek for saying the wrong lines. We'd get told to get back into position, to start the scene over, to do it _right_ this time.

There were no second, third, or fourth takes in real life, though.

"I don't, uh," I stammered. The words didn't sound like they were coming out of me. They sounded like they were coming out of some other, weaker boy, a more terrified and unsure and fragile kid that didn't know what the fuck he was doing, now or ever.

"Just. Stop." Tweek raised his head and looked at me, right in the eyes. "You don't. Just." He clenched his eyes shut, unable to find the words.

"Can you just give me a fucking answer already?" I blurted out, and I hated how pathetic it sounded.

"You want an answer?" he snarled. "How's this for an answer: you don't even _know_ me."

"I've been trying!"

"My favorite color and my childhood pet are nothing compared to what you don't know," he continued, eyes narrowing. "You are confused. Stop."

And just what could I say to that? Nothing. There was nothing. We both knew he was right.

"So that's it, then?" I felt numb, cold. I didn't like it.

"I want to go home."

It had been the longest walk of my life, the walk to take him home. He hadn't wanted me to, but I didn't care what he wanted at this point. I walked him right up to the door, even when he told me not to, and I stood on his doorstep long after he'd shut the door in my face.

That was that.

* * *

By about four-thirty in the morning, I realized that it was futile for me to even bother squeezing my eyelids shut, so I surrendered to my insomnia and stared miserably up at the ceiling, willing it to collapse on me.

I hated it. I hated everything at the moment, but I really hated this. I wanted to sleep, and being awake for the past two and a half hours was just fucking ridiculous. No one thing should ever bother a person to this degree. Nothing should be this much of a fucking deal.

I laid there like that for God knows how much longer, secretly wanting to stab myself out of my agony, contemplating what other ways I could off myself that didn't require getting up or leaving the room—when I suddenly felt my pillow start vibrating.

It was my cell phone, which I had shoved down under there. I blinked at the sound before reacting, wondering who the hell was calling me at this fucking hour.

I dug under the pillow, fingers finding my phone and retrieving it before the last ring. I had to react fast enough to answer it before it hit voice mail, so I didn't get a chance to check the caller ID.

"Mmmff," I mumbled, rubbing at my temples with my free hand and my mouth buried in the pillow. "H'llo?"

"Craig?"

I was wide awake now.

"What do you want?" I snapped. In retrospect, it was unfair of me to be mad at him. If he didn't like me like I liked him, I should have valued him enough as a friend to be okay with that.

But the heart-break was too fresh, and I was mad. Maybe not at him, though. Probably more at the cosmos, whatever had decided that things were going to play out like this. I didn't like when life didn't work out the way I'd expected it to.

Tweek hadn't responded right away, probably taken aback by the harshness in my tone. "Were you sleeping?"

"No, actually, thanks for asking."

"I wasn't either." There was a pause. "I didn't mean to bother you, but something told me you might be up, too."

_Would that be your guilt from breaking my tiny black heart?_ I thought to myself.

"Why do I care?" I mumbled, picking at a loose thread on my pillow.

"I was hoping, um," his voice was strained, a low whisper, "you could help me."

"Help you."

"Get to sleep."

Probably the right answer was to say no. To blurt no, even, to hang up immediately and toss my fucking phone out the window.

But I couldn't. He was asking me. For help.

Maybe he didn't want me like I wanted him, but I sure as hell was not about to ignore him.

"Uh." I glanced at the clock again. 4:15. "Fuck me. Let me call you back."

I hung up before he had a chance to respond.

I rolled out of bed, drowsily pulled on my jeans, my shoes, a sweater, and proceeded to tiptoe out my door and past my sister's room, wondering briefly as I went if we still had chocolate chips in the cubboard.

Fifteen minutes later, I called Tweek back.

"…hello?" I heard him answer on the other end, his voice as suspicious as ever.

"Hey. Open your front door."

"What? Why?"

"Just do it, stupid."

Lo and behold, several confused seconds later, I watched him open the door and his eyes widen in surprise when he saw me standing there. "When I asked you for help, I didn't mean come over!"

I shoved past him. "No time to talk, I'm fucking tired and so are you, so get the hell out of the way."

I walked quickly down the front hall to where I knew his kitchen was located. It reeked of coffee beans, and there were owls and flowering plants everywhere. On the wall by the stove were about ten hooks, each occupied by aprons of different colors and designs. I picked the most basic one I could see (a pink one), put it on, and got to work immediately.

Tweek walked in just in time to see me rummaging through cabinets, pulling out flour and milk and a plethora of crap. I had the half a bag of chocolate chips under my arm and dumped them in a bowl. The skeptical fuck that he is, he immediately asked a bunch of questions, like "what the hell are you doing," and "do you remember where anything goes because my mom hates it when the kitchen gets rearranged." I told him to kindly shut up and just watch. He finally gave up and sat at the table in the kitchen.

Within ten minutes, I place a stack of three chocolate chip pancakes down in front of him, along with powdered sugar and a bottle of syrup.

"Eat up."

He stared down at it. "You made pancakes."

"Surprised?"

"I just didn't think you knew how."

"I told you I knew how."

"I didn't think you were serious!"

"Well, I was. Try them. They probably won't kill you, although I guess I can't promise anything.

He was tentative when he finally complied with my wishes, picking up the fork carefully and using the edge to slice off an edge. After he stabbed it, he slowly pushed it into his mouth and nibbled on the bite.

I get my verdict a few seconds later.

"Oh, _wow_."

"Yeah, I know, I'm fucking awesome."

"No, dude, these are seriously—" He cut off a bigger slice for himself and shoved it in his mouth. He moaned in delight with each consecutive bite, and I let him eat without distracting him.

He made it through about three-fourths of the stack before he put down the fork, looked up at me, and asked what I'm sure he'd wanted to ask this entire time.

"Why pancakes?"

I sighed. "My mom used to make them for me and my sister when we were younger. We love them, but at one point she got too busy, so I taught myself. They're all I know how to make."

"No, no…I meant why pancakes _now_."

"Oh." I shrugged like it was nothing. "Mom used to make them when we couldn't sleep. I don't know what it is about them. I used to think she crushed sleeping pills in them, but who knows? Odd hours of the morning, mom will prove she loves us more than her own sleep, that's gotta count for something. I dunno, they just work like a charm."

"You came to my house at four-thirty in the morning to make me pancakes?"

"I sure did."

He was very quiet after that, poking at his pancake. I thought I had somehow offended him, and then he said, "do you want to try?"

I frowned. "I know what they taste like."

"I can't eat them all by myself."

I did enjoy those fucking pancakes, and I reasoned eventually that one bite wouldn't make a difference.

"Fine."

I opened my hand so he could hand me the fork. Instead, he stabbed a piece and, standing up, moved to hold the utensil beyond my lips. I eyed the piece of pancake in front of my face, then glanced at him curiously. He raised his eyebrows in the direction of the food.

I had no choice, so I opened my mouth a little, and he moved the fork in, slowly and gently. I closed my mouth around it, and he slid it back out just as slowly as he had put it in. I chewed for not even a few seconds, savoring and relishing the taste…and then, before I could react, I felt Tweek put a hand on my shoulder for support and, in the corner of my eye, saw him lean in.

I stopped chewing immediately.

His lips hesitated a fraction of a hair away from the corner of my mouth, enough so that when he spoke next, his lips ghosted across my skin.

"Thank you."

I felt his finders slide into my right hand and squeeze it tenderly, and then he pressed his lips against the spot where he had spoke against.

I swallowed my food in the world's loudest gulp. I would like to also note that I hadn't finished chewing so it was extremely painful.

"Did you walk here?" he said when he pulled back, his fingers still twined with mine.

I nodded, unable to speak.

"Will you stay the night?"

"I, um, I really shouldn't, that wouldn't be a good idea, my parents will notice—"

He brought the hand he was holding up to his lips, dragging his lips across all my fingers in a long and quiet kiss.

"Please," he said when he glanced up, staring directly into my eyes. "Stay."

"O-okay."

There is nothing left in the world that could've made me say anything else.

He took me up to his room, told me I could sleep there if I wanted. I nodded, though he couldn't see me, my mind whirling. I was still trying to catch up with what happened.

There was slight hesitation when we reached his door, Tweek's hand hovering over the knob. He spared a glance at me, a brief and subtle glance, then clasped the metal of the knob and turned.

Perhaps on any other occasion, I would have been immediately overwhelmed with the contents of this room. I would've noticed everything, perhaps in more clarity and detail, because there was a shitload of things in here. Every surface was covered in things, every shelf, every desk space, the window sill, all of the floor. I couldn't make sense of anything. It was a random array and assortment of things: nicknacks, the kinds of souvenirs you might find in the antique gift shop of a small town, toys and books, games and glass figurines, some broken and old, some brand new and in their original packaging. There was no rhyme or reason to the way they were arranged, no amount of sorting or organization.

Except that about eighty percent of the objects were blue.

I might have paid closer attention to these things, may have come to the conclusion that these were souvenirs, trophies, Tweek's _stolen rewards_, sooner than the next morning.

But I didn't.

Tweek collapsed on the bed, and pulled me down with him, and we laid there, right on the covers, me still in my jeans and my shoes. I thought about taking them off, just to make this more comfortable, just so I wouldn't drag dirt on his sheets.

But I didn't.

I didn't do a lot of things. I didn't think. I didn't question. I didn't speak.

I just watched him, right across from me on this bed, watched him stare back at me, his eyelids heavy with fatigue.

"Thanks for the pancakes," he whispered, his hand still laced with mine.

"Thanks for letting me stay the night."

I don't remember when we drifted off to sleep, how we did, who did first, or even what position we were in. I don't even know how long we were out.

I awoke the next morning on my back, my limbs tangled in sheets, and with a single beam of sunlight warming my face, and when my eyes peeled open slowly, I saw it streaming down at me through a slit in the drapes.

It had taken me a few minutes to familiarize myself with my surroundings, to remember where I was and how I got here. Tweek crossed my mind at some point in the minutes it took me to become conscious, and I became aware of the lack of his body on the bed beside me.

I glanced around wearily.

He was nowhere to be found.

In my pocket, my phone vibrated lightly twice to let me know I had gotten a voice mail, and I assumed right then that _that_ must have been what woke me up.

Under normal circumstances, I might have ignored it.

Today, I found the energy to dig around in my pants pocket, pull it out, press the necessary buttons, and press the speaker to my ear.

I think some part of me must have wondered if it was from Tweek, though why he would call me when I was currently sleeping on his bed in his house was beyond me.

It wasn't Tweek, though, of course it wasn't.

It was Clyde.

"Craig, man," he said, his voice frantic, high-pitched and halfway to a sob. "Craig—fuck, I don't know where you are, I've been calling and texting you all fucking morning, but I need to talk to you—_shit_, dude, the—the fucking store was robbed last night, man. It was fucking _robbed_."

I think he said a little more than that, cried out details and accusatory questions and more pleads that I needed to call him back, but I had long since stopped listening.

I had found Tweek. He had walked into the room in the middle of the voicemail, and when he saw that I was awake, he pressed his back up against the door and slid down to sit against it, his knees curled to his chest.

He was crying.


	10. Recollection

_A/N: sorry this took so long aah :( I'm trying something new: aiming to make these chapters shorter. this was actually much longer but I cut it off at a place that seemed good and...well, here it is. the good part about that is that I kept the rest of it and I can probably turn that into a reasonably suitable (and very short) chapter 11. this basically means I'll probably be able to update this in a week or two, depending on how much time I have to work on it. I'm also planning on rewriting or editing out all the previous nine chapters to hopefully shorten them up/make them more presentable. I wanted to do that before this chapter but I guess most of you care more about a new chapter than me fixing the old ones soooo so yeah! whenever I get around to that and if you ever felt like rereading them again, it'll probably be a little different than the first time around :'D_

_ah thank you all so much for all your reviews ;u; even my flames...well okay flames are not cool especially when they're kind of rudely worded, but er thanks for caring enough to attempt to rain on my parade I guess? I don't know lmao_

_recap: prom night and finally the big confession yay craig go you. tweek kind of rejects him but invites craig over that night! craig makes pancakes and gets a kiss and a place to sleep for the night in exchange! next morning he gets a call that the store's been robbed oh golly_

_and here we go_

* * *

Let me preface my next sentence by mentioning that by no stretch of apathy or cold-heartedness on my part do I utter it, but—

If there's anything I hate most in the world, it's having to sit in the same room as a crying person.

Although, who doesn't really? Who _enjoys_ that? Like, that's gotta be more fucked up than my absolute loathing for it.

It just makes me really uncomfortable really fast. And I'm talking alert-fight-or-flight-reflexes, seek-out-nearest-exists, engage-panic-mode, dig-head-into-the-ground, get-me-the-fuck-out-of-here uncomfortable.

I think it's because I feel, as an audience for these tears, that I am primarily responsible for remedying them, and you know as well as I do how well that could possibly go.

To illustrate my point: one time, when I was fifteen and my sister was seven, our parents left us home alone, and I had to wait until Red got there to babysit Bea before I could head off to Clyde's. Red was late so we both decided to watch TV together, which really translated to us racing to the living room to figure out who would have control of the remote. As we were running down the stairs, Bea—I don't know what the fuck she was doing—she ended up tripping on the third step and slammed her face right onto the banister on the way down.

At first I had started laughing because, well, it's funny when people get hurt, come on. But then she started crying and her mouth was bleeding, so I shut up immediately. Not sure what to do, I first tried picking her up because it's what I'd seen my mom do with her when she cried. She was sprawled out on the ground, so I'd had to awkwardly grab her under her arms and hoist her to her knees, but this just made her cry some more. So I put her back down and when she didn't stop crying, I began to walk off until I remembered that she might get blood on the carpet. I retrieved five or so paper towels from the kitchen, dropped them by her screaming and hollering head, then retreated to the living room to watch TV.

Hey, I'd _won_ fair and square, hadn't I?

Fortunately, Red showed up two minutes later and, also fortunately, she was in love with me at the time, so I was spared her wrath, although she did shoot me a pretty scathing glare as she carried my bleeding sister to the upstairs bathroom.

The point of this story is that if I can't handle my bleeding crying sister, how well do you think I would have managed having to deal with Tweek crying? I mean, I have to deal with _Clyde _crying all the time but I've grown so accustomed to that that I've built up immunity to it.

Because I had dropped my cell phone at the same moment he had entered the room, and because I was watching him through tiny slits between my eyelids, I don't think he realized I was awake yet, so I was in luck. In any case, he had yet to look over or acknowledge me. He was still sitting over by the door sniffling, his shoulders wrecked with tremors, and I could see his fingers twisting tightly around each other.

A faint sound murmured somewhere below me and it took me a minute to realize that Clyde's voicemail was still playing on the floor. If Tweek hadn't noticed me yet, the sound would most certainly alert him. I waited until he began wiping at both his eyes with the sleeve of his pajama shirt before I quickly reached out, grabbed it, and stuffed it under my abdomen, stamping the cancel button on my phone about thirty or so times as I did so.

Despite having alleviated that momentary issue, I was still faced with what to about Tweek. There were no other options other than continuing to feign sleep until he left or waking up and making this situation about a thousand times more awkward than it needed to be. As time dragged on, the second option started to gnaw at me, and I slowly began to concede that it was probably the more moral thing to do right now.

Luckily for me, I didn't have to.

Somewhere in the room a buzz of a cell phone went off. It wasn't mine, and it sounded muffled, like it was hiding, and like it was moving against a dozen other plastic objects.

Tweek's head popped up instantly, his crying forgotten for a moment. He waited, listening as the vibration gave way to music, a snippet of something loud and with a beat and, muffled as it was, consisting of a colorful repertoire of obscenities.

Tweek instantly scrambled to his feet, practically throwing himself across the room to the wooden desk on the opposite wall. He'd tripped over a few small towers of different colored die that lay scattered around the floor, and when he'd reached the desk, he'd accidentally, in his haste, shoved over large stacks of papers, a flock of origami cranes, and fifteen or so Crayola crayons onto the floor.

I watched him feel around the desk for one of the top drawers and seize it open, digging his hand inside and moving it around frantically. The song continued to play and the phone continued to buzz and when he pulled back his hand for a second, his fist was filled with about four different cell phones.

He held them up to his ear and when the music and vibrating continued from back within the drawer, he threw the handful he had onto the ground and dug through the drawer some more. He eventually found the one he was looking for and without glancing at who was calling, he flipped it open and pressed it against his ear.

"Hi hello what!" he cried into the receiver, biting his nails as he did. For a second he remained silent, listening to and concentrating on the voice on the other end.

He cast a look at me, as if he forgot I was there, then in a more hushed tone, replied, "ah, uh… No I haven't seen him—" His eyes widened and he shook his head. "I mean, no, I have! He's here, um." His eyes continued to dart back and forth. "He came over, uh, this morning?" Then he bonked the heel of his palm against his forehead in frustration. "Nonono I mean last night, he came over last night! He slept here!"

He fell silent again, but this time he began inching toward the door. In the same second he reached the door and turned the knob, he muttered into the receiver, "n-no he's still sleeping, actually, I don't want to, um, disturb him!" then he stepped out of the room, closing the door shut behind him.

The minute he left, I flipped over onto my side so that I was now facing the wall and my back was to the door. Pulling the blanket over most of me to further shield what I was doing, I held my phone up in front of my face and pressed one of the buttons. When the screen lit up, I realized that I had about twenty missed calls and ten text messages. Many of the calls were either from Clyde or my mom. There were two from my sister and (to my horror) one from my father. The texts were from the same people, excluding my father but including one from Token and one from Kenny.

I had a good idea what Clyde had to talk about and assumed Token was texting on his behalf. Kenny—who cares.

My family was probably contacting me for the same reason, so I picked mom, the lesser of the two evils that are my parents, to represent the lot of them.

Her first text said, _where r u? did u com home last nite_. The second said, _jst txt me so i know ur safe at least. _The third just said, _church_.

Fuck, I'd forgotten about that.

I quickly stamped out, _i slept over at tweek's house, sorry i forgot to mention it. _

Less than an entire minute later, I received, _ur father is not happy. r u coming home_

I replied, _soon _and mom reiterated, _church_. I responded with, _yeah yeah i know_. And hoped that would be the end of it.

Then she sent me, _did u know ur work was robbed last nite_

No, actually, mom, it completely slipped my mind until you'd brought it up, _thanks a bunch_.

I was just about to sarcastically respond with something along those lines when I heard the bedroom door creak open again behind me. I quickly stuffed the phone underneath the pillow and froze, slamming my eyelids shut and trying to increase the heaviness of my breathing.

I listened.

It was Tweek of course. I could tell that much just by the tiny noises that accompanied his sniffling, but, most importantly of all, he was _just_ sniffling. He wasn't whimpering or sobbing or gasping, and even what sniffling he was doing was subtle and minimal. I couldn't see him but I supposed that he had long since calmed down during the course of that phone call.

I waited anyway to see what he would do. I heard his bare feet drag softly across his carpet as he shuffled his way across the room, then instantly felt the bed jostle beneath me when the sudden newfound weight of his body eased onto the foot of the bed. The mattress slightly dipped in his direction, just slightly, and from what I could tell, he was sitting at my feet.

Confident that the crying was over, I figured now would be a good time to pretend to wake up.

I let my eyelids ease open, blinking slightly and curiously as I did. I faked a loud yawn and then stretched out my arms and legs as over-exaggeratedly as possible, taking care to poke Tweek with the tips of my feet as I did so. I pretended to be surprised by the sudden contact and craned my head in his direction, blinking wearily at him. His knees were drawn to his chest, his arms were wrapped around his calves, his mouth was buried behind his knees, and he was watching me with large, patient eyes.

Pausing for effect before speaking, I finally managed to mumble out a tiny, "hey there."

"Hi."

I yawned again and rubbed at my eyes. "How long have you been up?"

"Um. Ten minutes maybe."

Liar. But that at least meant he hadn't realized I was awake and was watching him either.

It takes me a few minutes (and this is with no forced theatrics on my part) before I'm able to curl and wiggle and ease my groggy self into a sitting position next to him. I'm not quite cross-legged. My knees are bent and the bottoms of my feet press flat up against each other. I grab them with both hands and stare at them for a moment. My socks are the same color and the same length, I realize, which is a rare occurrence for me. I know it had been for the dance last night but it says a lot about my current life situation to notice that even the little details of my person are changing just to suit the kid sitting beside me.

Though I'm sure he wouldn't care about mismatched socks.

He probably never even wears socks.

He looks like the type of kid that doesn't wear socks.

I glance at him in the corner of my eye and he's still sitting there, watching me, patient as ever. He probably thinks I need these few minutes to wake up properly, but I'm really just biding my time planning out what I need to say next. Because I definitely had a slew of topics to discuss.

But of all the things I could have said to the boy whose bed I just woke up in, who kissed my face the night before, to whom I had confessed my love to not more than twenty-four hours ago—

"Do you ever mismatch your socks?"

—probably wasn't my best line.

He didn't even respond, just lifted his head a little and stared at me with slightly furrowed brows.

"Wow, sorry, that was dumb, don't answer that—"

Then he poked his feet out a little bit more, so that they poked out beneath the leg holes of his pajama bottoms and teetered over the edge of the bed. He was wearing one sock and it had a hole on the big toe.

So I was half right.

I barked out a clipped laugh, rubbing at my eye with my knuckle as I did. Tweek grinned his tiny crooked side-mouthed grin. We lapsed into silence again but at least the first hurdle has been crossed. It didn't feel quite so awkward anymore.

"Any time you want me out of here, just say the word," I said next as my eyes searched the room for a clock. "I think I have to meet my parents for church soon or some shit. I don't suppose you're feeling Catholic today? Or maybe this Sunday is one for the synagogue."

I never founnd a clock, though. I didn't think there was any room anywhere in this room for a clock, anyway. Every flat surface (and even surfaces that weren't so flat) was covered in random junk. His walls were almost as bad: a subway map of New York city here, a periodic table there. He even had a poster of the food pyramid tacked to his ceiling. There are four posters of who I realized are Nicki Minaj and a couple of Eminem, and there was a tapestry over his bed that depicted this tripped-out looking multicolored Hindu god. Next to an empty steel birdcage and standing by the door there was a bookshelf with seven shelves, only one of which held any books, all ancient-looking and tattered. The rest house a number of disorganized bric-a-brac, like antique compasses and rubber ducks—don't even get me started on that shit, though; mindless junk like the ones that decorate that shelf pretty much _dominated_ the rest of the room.

On a space of wall that wasn't covered by anything, I saw that there was clearly some kind of red and purple paint. There was rhyme and reason to the way it was splashed on the wall, I think, but I couldn't tell what it was supposed to be because a huge glass-framed _Temple of Doom_ poster and a motivational poster of a blue whale covered three-fourths of it. I was about to ask about a number of things I'd just seen when my eyes travel to a fedora and a coiled whip hanging on nails near the first poster and I stop.

Tweek had long since answered my first question, responding with something along the lines of, "no I'm staying home today," but I blatantly ignored him to say, "is that an Indiana Jones hat? And a whip?"

He blinked over at it, as if he forgot it was there. "Yeah."

I leapt to my feet immediately, crossing the distance between the bed and the wall. I tripped and nearly fall over a number of things on my way over there (big plastic bins filled with rocks, an empty coffee can filled with a collection of key, t-shirts and a _pair of boxing gloves_) but I ignore everything in favor of the objects on the wall. I run my fingers across the leather of the whip and the brim of the hat.

"Are these authentic?" I finally asked, not hiding the awe in my voice.

"Um, I bought them from a magazine, if that's what you're asking. The add claims they're movie exact-replicas, anyway."

I grabbed the hat off the hook and, pushing my own out of the way, set it on my head. Clutching the brim with the tips of my first two fingers and my thumb, I adjusted it securely, feeling ninety percent more like a badass already.

I threw a glance back at Tweek, waiting for assessment. He shrugged and snorted at my ridiculousness, but gave an approving nod.

Grinning, I set it back on the hook.

"You keep a whip in your room, eh? That's some kinky shit, man."

He sputtered in disbelief before he properly answered. "It's not like that!"

"I'm kidding."

He scoffed. "Like you even know the meaning of kinky."

I raised an eyebrow. "And _you_ do?"

"More than you, I'm sure."

I chose to ignore his remark. It wasn't completely false, anyway.

"Big fan of Dr. Jones, then?"

"Are you kidding?" He sounded annoyed, but I watched as his eyes lit up as he continued to speak. "It's my favorite movie series! I've seen them all at least one hundred and fourteen times! They're the only DVDs I, uh, own personally."

"Special edition?"

"_Collector's_ edition."

"Action figures?"

He nodded at the bookshelf and I saw that they were all standing around in various poses on the third shelf from the top.

"I even own the Lego game for my PC."

"Now, let me ask you, did you watch the fourth one?"

"Ugh, five times and I was there for the midnight showing." He shuddered. "It was terrible! But it's _Indy_, man, I had to be there!"

"Impressive."

"I, ah, even have a real working replica of the bazooka from _Raiders_ in my garage."

I raised an eyebrow. "I'm sensing some intense hero-worship here."

It was a joke, but then he responded, quietly, perhaps more to himself than me, "you could call it that."

"Oh?"

He shook his head, burying his mouth behind his arms again. "No, ugh, it's stupid."

"Relax, we all wanna be Harrison Ford when we grow up, dude, it's no big deal."

"Not the actor, man, the character!" His fingers suddenly snaked through his hair as he began tugging on the ends. "Argh—the adventures and the charm and—and the face stubble! It's—"

"Hot, yeah, I know, no one can resist the man."

The light left his eyes and he deflated like a balloon. "Never mind, it's dumb."

I returned to the bed, sitting down gingerly beside him. "It's not dumb. I was just kidding. I know what you're talking about." I coughed. "I looked up to Red Racer when I was younger. I thought he was the motherfucking shit, so I get it, okay? We've all got our heroes."

"I don't want to just do the things he's done or whatever. I don't think I could anyway, even if I got the chance. It's more…I wish I was half the guy he is, man. He's so—just—so fucking fearless, y'know?"

He fell silent, but continued to pull at strands of hair, albeit less forcefully than before, and I realized that he looked smaller now than I'd ever seen him before.

I wanted to kiss him.

But I didn't. Of course I didn't, when do I ever go through with anything I want to do?

I was, however, reminded of what I really wanted to talk about.

"So, um, not to purposely change the subject, but—" My fingers find their way to the back of my neck, rubbing it absentmindedly.

"You want to talk about last night?" he asked, now staring at the floor.

"Not really, but we probably should."

He sighed, probably about as eager as I was to go through with this. "Which part?"

"The part where you, um. Y'know. Kissed. Um. Me."

"I kissed the side of your mouth!"

"Which is connected to me, if you didn't know."

"Whatever, okay, yeah, so I kissed you."

I waited for him to say something more, but he didn't.

"Um," I reluctantly continued. "Did that, uh."

"Mean anything?"

"Yes."

He licked his lips contemplatively, and, after thinking about how to respond, finally muttered, "it just felt right."

"It _felt right_? What does that even mean?"

"It means what it means!" He threw his hands up as he said it. "I don't know!"

I was getting annoyed now. "There's got to be something, come on now. What, you kiss people when they make you food or something, is that it? Is that, like, a thing you do?"

"No! Ugh, God, I just—" He was pulling at his hair strands again. "What do you want me to say?"

My lips opened automatically, ready to retort with an answer I didn't actually have.

"I don't…I don't know."

What _did_ I want him to say? For that matter, what did I _want_?

Not to make out with me, not to make passionate love to me on the bed, not to hold me or ask to be my boyfriend—I couldn't fathom any of those things happening and frankly I couldn't say I wanted them, not now, not here, not with him. I wouldn't reject them if they occurred, but it was more that it wasn't like either of us to really do any of those things.

So _what_ then?

"It's not like I haven't done it before," he said finally.

"Done what?"

"Kissed you. There. In that same spot."

"No you haven't." I stared at him, waiting for him to bust up snickering or something, but he just stared back. "Have you?"

He snorted derisively. "You really don't remember anything, do you?"

"I think at this point it's fair to assume that I never remember anything." I strained to locate a memory of when might have done this before, but I was drawing a blank. "Was it before you left?"

Tweek nodded, but didn't elaborate. As usual, he was expecting me to recall the memory myself. I knew asking him to tell me was a hopeless venture, so I tried something else.

"Do it again."

"What?"

I gestured to my mouth. "Right here. Lay it on me."

"And this is going to achieve…?"

"It might trigger the memory."

"Did it trigger something last night?"

"I was too busy being blindingly infatuated with you and panicking at the impending impact of your _mouth against mine_—if any memories were triggered, I missed them."

He rolled his eyes, but I spied a hint of red creeping on his face. "Ugh, fine. Don't move."

I obeyed, keeping my hands folded in my lap. He hesitated, then leaned over, craning his neck and shutting his eyes. His hand found its way to the bed, on a space near my knee, to steady himself, and even though it was the side of my leg against the side of his hand, the faint touch near killed me. I knew it was coming this time, but my stomach still flip-flopped in anticipation.

At last, his lips met my face, ghosting over the side of my mouth again. Without thinking, I moved the angle of my head at the last second, and his lips slid across my mouth, meeting my lips squarely, evenly, the way kisses ought to be. I pushed myself to kiss back against him, but he pulled away almost immediately, and I was left puckering at the air.

"Craig!"

My eyelids fluttered in surprise, opening to stare at him wide-eyed and fuming at me.

"I told you not to move!" he snapped before shaking his head furiously. "Did that even work?"

I licked the corner of my mouth and glanced at the ceiling, trying to conjure the memory. "No, but I think it's because I moved. You should do it again."

He shoved me hard, and kept doing so until I was forced to scramble off the bed and to my feet. Even then he didn't stop, stretching his arms to keep pushing at me until I was a few feet away and much closer to the door.

"I'm serious! I won't move this time, I swear!"

"You can _go_ now," he said brusquely.

I narrowed my eyes. "We're not done talking."

"_I'm_ done talking."

"Just answer me one thing, okay? I get one question, don't I?"

He didn't respond, and I accepted that as a yes.

"You kissed me." I rubbed the back of my neck again. "And I just want to know. If you. Uh. Feel things. The same things I feel, I mean. About me." I felt my face turning hot as the words stumbled their way out of my mouth.

Truth be told, I didn't even think I wanted that either. Maybe even less that I didn't _want_ it, but more that I didn't expect it, so I never even entertain the idea. I just needed closure, a definitive answer, so I could put this bullshit behind me.

"I thought I made that pretty clear last night," he said quietly.

"Trust me, you didn't."

"It's complicated,"

"Complicated? Why does it have to be _complicated_, it's either a 'yes I do' or a 'no I don't,' so which is it?"

"It's not that simple!" His eyes trailed to the floor. "I don't want to talk about this right now, can you please just go?"

My fingers curled into tight balls at my sides. "Why should I?" I deserved an answer, didn't I? I'd done my part, I'd laid my cards on the table. He wasn't allowed to leave me hanging like this.

"You're being unreasonable, that's why!" he said. "And you stole a fucking kiss! You can't do that!"

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, okay, so I can't steal motherfucking kisses but _you _can just—"

Halfway through my words I realized that I was about to do something stupid, a stupidity very similar to poking an already enraged dragon in the eye with a stick, so I bit my tongue. In an effort to dodge that bullet, I bent to grab my shoes and began tugging them on my feet one by one.

"I can just _what_?"

"Nothing." I got the right one on and began shoving on the left.

"Finish that sentence," he challenged, his voice menacing and venomous, and I wouldn't have obeyed his words if he'd paid me to.

"Calm down, Tweek. I'm leaving okay, see?"

One glance at his face told me he was still fuming, but he said nothing more. I'm pretty sure he had _plenty_ to say, though, because he knew as well as I did what I was about to say next. I was about to point out that he steals shit all the goddamn time, that this entire room was filled with his prized nicked possessions Maybe even the furniture wasn't his either. If I'd gone any further, I probably would have outright accused him of robbing the store last night, but that _really_ wouldn't have gone over well.

But we'd never had a real conversation about this and I wasn't eager to start now.

I turned to grab the doorknob, hesitating only for a second to stop and glance back at Tweek. "I have one last thing to ask, if that's okay." Not that it mattered, because I was going to ask it anyway.

"All this bullshit—it's not really about what I want, is it? I think it's pretty clear what I want. I don't want you to kiss me, I want you to _want_ to kiss me. I want you to want to like me and I want you to want all the same things I want for the both of us." I sighed, my face red, but I pushed on. "But I think what _you_ want is an even bigger fucking mystery, just like every other goddamn thing about you. So what the fuck do you want, Tweek? And I don't just mean with you and me, but I mean for _you. _Just you. I know this is bigger than just the two of us, so, tell me, just what the _fuck_ does Tweek Tweak want for himself? Because if you don't figure that out, we're not getting anywhere."

He doesn't answer and I don't expect him to, so I turn the doorknob and stomp out.

* * *

Tweek's parents aren't downstairs when I get there so I'm able to slip out without being noticed. A glance at my phone tells me that I have no time to run home to change or anything, so I head in the opposite direction, aiming for the church.

It's a long walk, made longer by my brain whirling with a constant replay of the past half hour. Service has started by the time I get there, but I feel like crap and probably look the part, so I steal away into the bathroom in the back and try to do some damage control.

I wash my face and run damp fingers through my greasy hair before realizing it looks pretty shitty on a regular basis anyway, and shove my hat on over it. My clothes are a mess, but at least I had changed into jeans and a shirt last night before I had headed over to Tweek's. I tucked in the shirt, tugged on my jacket, zipped it up all the way, then left the restroom.

I had hoped to be inconspicuous when I entered the main room of the church, but of course I had to walk in during a moment of silence. Father Maxi was saying his homily and had chose to pause at that exact moment, so basically everyone on the fucking planet earth heard the main doors squeak open like the sound of tortured banshees. Most of them chose to ignore me, thank God, but, unfortunately for me, my family was sitting right in the fucking center of the building, so, in addition to having awakened the shrill harpy cry that were the hinges on those double doors, I was now forced to loudly stomp my way over to my parents, my shoes squeaking all the way.

Father Maxi, God bless the bastard, was courteous enough to wait until I made it into my pew before continuing speaking. If everyone hadn't already made at least one judgmental glance in my direction, they had now.

The second I scooted past my sister and squeezed myself between her and my mother, my dad reached behind mom's back to grab me by the arm and jerk me toward him.

"Boy, where the fucking hell were you last night?" he growled in a low whisper. When he's mad, however, my father's definition of "whisper" is actually a normal volume for a regular person's voice.

I tugged my arm out of his grip, and he released me.

"I came home late from the prom and crashed at Tweek's place," I whispered back, "Calm the fuck down old man."

"Don't tell me to calm down," he snapped. "Did you fuck him?"

"Dad. Wow."

"Did you?"

"No!"

My mom threw him a stern look. "Thomas, _please_, at least wait until after service."

"No, Gloria, I need to deal with this bullshit now." He rounded on me again. "You did fuck him, didn't you? Did you make sure you were wearing a condom at least?"

"Thomas!"

"Dad!"

Bea giggled noisily behind her fingers.

The couple in front of us (the Stotches, I realized) turned around and shushed us loudly.

My entire family immediately dropped the issue at hand. Without hesitation, my dad, mom, sister, and I all rounded on these two and simultaneously and automatically raised our middle fingers to salute them. They collectively gasped and turned back around.

The rest of service commenced in peace.

When it was over and most of the people had filed out of the church, my dad quickly hurried us out of our pew. As I tried to put as much distance between myself and him as possible, he grabbed me by the shoulder and leaned close to my ear, muttering "so help me God, the second we are out of this church, you are going to hear it."

To my great fortune, I'd ended up running into Clyde and Token just outside the doors to the church, and I couldn't have been gladder to see them.

"You have five minutes to get your ass in the car," my dad said when Token and Clyde asked if they could have a word with me. I nodded and my family left.

"Dude, where have you been? I've been calling you all fucking morning," Clyde said the minute they were gone. He spared me a second glance. "You look like shit, man."

"You look like shit every fucking day."

"Wow, well that was unnecessary."

"Clyde's right," Token said. "You look like you're suffering from a bad hangover. I thought you didn't drink last night."

"I didn't, no, I'm just having a crappy morning."

"Oh yeah, then what's your excuse for every other day?" Clyde snapped, still miffed about my last comment.

I flipped him off.

"Whatever, we'll deal with that later," Clyde said, waving it away. "The store got robbed last night."

"Yeah, I got your voicemail."

"Then why didn't you call me back?" he screeched.

"I was…tied up. How much was taken?"

"The entire moneybox. There was like a five hundred dollars in that thing."

I frowned. "What's Johnson doing hoarding that much money in the store?"

Clyde shrugged. "Beats me. But he's pretty mad, man."

"You talked to him? Does he have any idea who did it?"

"How are you supposed to trace that? He got there early this morning, the door was already open, the place looked fine but the box was missing. There's no way he could know."

"Didn't he call the police or anything?"

"Well, yeah, but _Barbrady_'s on the case, and he has enough trouble finding his way out of his patrol car without getting tangled in his seatbelt."

Then what was Tweek so scared about? He hadn't even left a trail. And if they put Barbrady on the job, they might as well have hired a one-legged duck to find the money, with all the good he'll do.

When I opened my mouth to say something further, a loud honk of a horn from the parking lot interrupted me. It was my dad, and I could tell by the subtle glare on his face that the honk was meant for me. He'd ended up timing the honk well enough so that the Stotches happened to be walking by his car when he did it, and they'd jumped so high, I think it was kind of worth pissing him off just to see the looks on their faces.

"That for you?" Token asked, and I nodded, groaning.

"Yo, your folks need to hold their fucking horses, we're not done," Clyde said.

"Yeah try telling that to them. I'd say you have about fifteen seconds to say whatever you need to say before my dad starts the engine and runs me over."

I watched Clyde's face contort in concentration, probably deliberating which exciting piece of information was most important for him to discuss with me right this second.

His face lit up instantly as he slapped his fist into his palm. "Oh, _good news_ from last night!" He wiggled his eyebrows ridiculously. "Guess who's going out with Bebe now."

"Again?"

"Don't exaggerate, Clyde," Token added, smiling slightly.

"Okay, we have a _date_, but whatever. I knew she couldn't keep her hands off The Dono-Man for too long."

That sounds really sleazy, but Clyde is so into Bebe I wouldn't be surprised if they end up getting married some day. He just has a funny way of showing it.

As much as I would have loved to hear what must have been a riveting story of their reunion, a story I'm sure Clyde will embellish to its full extent at some later time, I was again met with another loud blare of a car horn.

Though I was dreading the impending ride home, I raised my hand and gave a half-hearted wave at my friends, already trudging backward in the direction of the car. They waved back, wishing me luck and making plans to call me later that night to give me the full story.

The car ride home was uncomfortable. The moment I sat down in the backseat, Dad began grilling me about where I'd gone last night, why I hadn't come home, and a number of variations on the question, "where and how did you put your penis in that twitchy kid."

To his first two questions, I snidely retorted that he probably wouldn't have noticed I was missing in the first place if he hadn't done a routine head-count before church that morning. To the latter accusation, I could only balk and sputter out a protest of, "_dad_, I'm not fucking gay, goddammit."

His reply was, "oh no you don't. Sorry boy but it's a bit late for that," and when I confronted Bea about this comment later, she explained that dad's been harboring this theory that I've been gay for the past year now. And the only reason she knew about this, she explained, is because he was constantly bringing it up with mom and her or mentioning it in offhand comments.

"We told him he can't just assume anything, but he's been hoping you'd out yourself so he could rub it in our faces."

That would certainly explain a lot. I thought dad had been purposely being an asshole to me just to make me mad, but apparently he'd been serious every time he referred to Clyde as my girlfriend. I wasn't sure how to feel about this, but I guess it was kind of nice knowing dad was somewhat enthused about at least _one_ thing about me.

Just as promised, dad also gave me a talk, or at least something that resembled a talk. Words aren't exactly dad's forte; he's much better suited to the part of parenting where he gets to issue punishments. Thus a majority of the conversation was filled with accusations of my alleged homosexuality, while every so often he'd remark about the importance of condom usage and, at the last second, mentioned that it was common courtesy to call your parents if you're not going to be home late at night. He'd been mad, which was a lot more emotion than I expected out of him, and it was mostly because I hadn't answered any of their calls. Other than that, he got over it pretty quickly, and just told me to go hang out in my room all day until dinner time, which is what I would have done anyway.

I thought about taking a nap to kill the next few hours, since I was still pretty sleepy, but while I was peeling off my jacket, I dug my hand into the pocket and felt my fingers wrap around something small inside. When I pulled my fist out and opened it, I saw that it was the tiny wooden boat Token had bought me from Hawaii.

I instantly remembered the last time I saw this thing. It was a few weeks ago, wasn't it? When the guys came over. It had mysteriously disappeared when Tweek left my house early, so I assumed it had made its way back into my jacket pocket through the same hands that had plucked it from my room in the first place.

Grasping the boat, I flopped backwards onto my bed and swiftly swung the top half of my body over the edge, hanging low enough to reach for the shoebox that was under my bed.

It was a shame, really. The first time Token had given this boat to me, I'd planned on sitting it on my side table. It was cute and would have made nice decoration for my otherwise boring room. Plus, the little number on the side, the 520, corresponded to a road in Hawaii whose name meant peace, and I was hoping having that staring at me every morning would remind me that my life, for all its lack of excitement, could certainly use more peace.

Tweek had taken it, though, and he'd been the one to return it. His actions had tainted it so that looking at it now reminded me not of Token and certainly not of peace, but _him_, the annoying little shit that was causing me unnecessary problems.

This boat had caused me more annoyance than it needed to, which meant it was time for it to find a new home.

The box was right where I had left it the last time I had opened, however many weeks ago that was. Slipping open the lid made me realize that I literally hadn't touched this thing in years and now here I was, revisiting it for the second time in a month. My little treasure chest, with all my childhood adventures and memories stored away inside it, uncovered and unlocked again.

I tucked the boat into a corner of the box, taking care to put it in a spot where I didn't think anything would crush it if the box happened to get jostled. Most of the stuff in there was pretty small, anyway; racecars and movie tickets and an empty plastic pink egg. The only thing large enough to do some damage was the amateur camcorder, so I pulled that out, placing it on my bed before returning the box under my bed.

Like the box, the camera was another object from my childhood that I hadn't really looked at in a long while. I couldn't even recall the last time I had used it.

What I could remember, however, was the memory of how I'd obtained it.

Its picture was on the back of a box of Cocoa Krispies, large block font proclaiming it to be, "just like the real thing," and coaxing any gullible kid to send in thirty box tops for a chance to, "direct your very own blockbuster hit, just like the pros do!"

Luckily for the Kellogg's cereal company, I was a very gullible kid with naïve aspirations to achieve exactly what I'd been promised on the back of that cereal box. Two weeks and thirty boxes of Fruit Loops, Frosted Flakes, and Apple Jacks later, I had cut enough box tops to stuff in an envelope and quickly deposit in the nearest mailbox.

You might think I would've been disappointed when, four weeks later, _this_ arrived in the mail.

Of course, it looked like a normal camera and functioned like a normal camera. You recorded footage on it and you could rewatch the footage through a tiny screen that opened out at the side. It was small, though. At the time, it was the size of my whole hand, but it now fit snugly in the palm of my hand, small enough to wrap my fingers around but large enough, apparently, to house five minutes of recorded video. I couldn't take the video off the device, either. There wasn't a tape, nor means for plugging it into a computer. Everything was recorded internally, so if you wanted to record something new, you were forced to record over whatever your last video was.

I had learned that the hard way.

My friends told me it was lame and a waste of money, and it probably was. But at the time, I was elated. It was a shitty excuse for a camera, but it was _my_ shitty excuse for a camera, my _first_ shitty excuse for a camera. I instantly fell in love with this newfound power I had to take a moment in time and immortalize it, to relive said moment for all eternity, to capture ideas and people and places and keep them forever. As far as my seven-year-old self was concerned, I was now on par with the greats. I felt like a fucking superhero.

With the same amount of determination I'd had when acquiring this amateur camera, I'd worked for a long time to upgrade to a _real_ camera, the model I had now. Gone were the box tops and cereal boxes, and in their place were years of accumulated birthday money and Christmas money that I refused to spend until I had saved just enough to purchase a model I'd been eyeing in a catalogue page that was tacked to my wall.

Holding this in my hands now hit me with an intense wave of nostalgia. I'd had my current camera for a long time now, but this, this thing in my hands, this was my _roots_.

My thumb slid over its plastic surface, over the scratches and the worn-out edges and the layer of dust, and found the rewind button. I pressed down, and, when the camera didn't react as I remembered it should have, I leaned over and tugged opened the top drawer of my side table. Inside was a hastily torn-open pack of AAA batteries, and I removed three. Opening up the camera, I forced all three inside, then moved my thumb again to rewind the video inside.

Half a minute later and it clicked softly, telling me it was ready, asking me if _I_ was ready.

I pressed play.

On the tiny screen, the video started with the camera focused on what I supposed was the snow-coated ground. Quickly and shakily it moved upward to focus on a person's face, and I instantly realized that the face was mine. Hair was shorter, hat was bigger, face was leaner—he was all around leaner—but that was me, alright. I'd recognize that permanent scowl anywhere, even if he was probably eight or nine.

Though the picture was focused on him, I could tell he was the one holding the camera because he was slightly off center and the whole world looked like it was suffering a massive earthquake. His eyes were closed, but he took a deep breath before suddenly popping his eyes open. A small grin stretched across his face, revealing two rows of noticeably crooked teeth, and I was transfixed by it. It was a strangely genuine smile, and I wondered how long it had been since I last smiled like that so easily for no reason.

_"Hi,"_ droned my younger counterpart, speaking to the camera. _"My name is Craig tucker, and I'm nine years old. It's four o'clock of December the seventh, and I'm here at school about two hours after we got let out."_ The camera suddenly spun around so wildly that I had to shut my eyes for a second to keep myself from getting nauseous. When I looked again, the camera was quickly panning the empty landscape of my elementary school playground. In the shot, I noticed red-painted handlebars in the corner and heard the faint but distinctive squeak of metal against metal, and I knew exactly where nine-year-old Craig was sitting.

It was the single steel merry-go-round my elementary school featured, and, though the thing seemed ready to give out every time you so much as placed your foot on it, I recalled all the arguments and fist-fights that would ensue just to get a chance to ride on it for even a minute.

The playground disappeared and Craig reappeared, placing the focus on himself again.

_"I'm here with Tweek Tweak, he's my friend, and we're making this video because—well, I'll let him tell you."_

I heard the yelp of protest before I saw Tweek. Craig spun the camera shakily and had it face him, and I saw he was sitting on the other side of the merry-go-round, his legs tucked underneath him and his fingers splayed across his face, shielding it from view.

_"_Agh_, don't film me!"_ he cried, taking away one hand to wave it at the camera.

_"Dude, this thing only has five minutes on it. Stop being uncooperative."_

_"You stop being uncooperative!"_

_"We're making this for you!"_

_"We're making it for you!"_

_"Wow, real mature."_ He scoffed. "_We're making it for _us_, you dumbass, now stop being a little bitch and show your face"_

When Tweek refused to budge, I heard Craig sigh and haughtily remark, _"I'm so glad I didn't ask for your help with _Close-Up Animals."

_"What!"_

_"At least Kenny was actually helpful. Offer the guy a chicken leg, and you have his full attention for a whole day, sheesh."_

"_Don't compare me to Kenny!" _

"_It's not going to steal your fucking soul, you pussy, what's the big deal?" _

_"Hey!"_ Tweek removed his hands and suddenly there it was: the pout I had grown to be so familiar with. His cheeks were fuller and his hair looked softer. He probably weighed more than me at this age, but time had definitely turned the tables on both of us.

"You little shits," I mumbled to myself, grinning slightly. "Hey, you fuckers, you haven't changed a bit you know that?"

Satisfied now that Tweek had removed his hands, Craig continued, commanding, _"say your name."_

Tweek's shoulders heaved and he glanced skyward. _"My name is Tweek Tweak."_

_"How old are you."_

_"I'm eight."_

_"And why are we making this video."_

For a moment, I thought the sound on the video had given out, because Tweek's lips clearly moved but I hadn't heard him say anything. A part of me believed my idiot counterpart had covered the microphone with his hand or something, but then I heard Craig utter, _"what was that_," only for Tweek to loudly repeat himself, this time bitterly snapping, _"because I'm moving away tomorrow!"_

I felt my throat close up.

_"Right. And I don't want to forget you exist, because I never know when I'm going to see you again."_

Tweek's eyes widened and his hands suddenly flew to his mouth, as if to stifle a sound. Behind his fingers, he whispered, concern in his tone, _"you won't, will you?"_

_"No, dude."_

_"Promise?"_

_"I promise."_

Tweek held out his pinky at the camera. _"Swear it! And get it on the video!" _On his third finger is a plastic red ring that looks oddly familiar. I bring the camera closer to my face, peering at the image carefully.

From behind the recorder, Craig held out his pinky and wrapped it around Tweek's. He had a matching ring on his own finger. _"I pinky promise to never forget you." _

Their pinkies remained locked, as if neither of them wanted to let go right away.

"_That's what this video is for, right?"_ Craig continued._ "So when I'm forty or fifty or one hundred, I won't forget you. And these—"_ he clicks their plastic rings together_—"From that time we found double prizes in our cereal box. I won't forget that. I won't forget the way you triple-tie your shoelaces or the way you tug on your hair when you get nervous or how you like to chew on pen caps in class or collect rocks because you think they're neat."_

"_It's because I want to be an archaeologist!" _

"_Like Indy, yeah, yeah, I know." _

Tweek smiled for the first time. _"And, ah, I won't forget your guinea pig o-or that you love zombie movies or the way your favorite laundry detergent smells—"_

"_Which is how?"_

"_Like fresh rain."_

"_Yeah, heh."_

"_I definitely won't forget that you're ticklish on your ears, either." _

"_You're ticklish on your neck."_

"_Yeah, well, you're also ticklish on your fingers!"_

"_Fuck you. You probably have one more, too." _

"_You'll never know if I do. Not if I'm leaving." _And just like that, the smile was gone, melting off his face as the corners of his mouth dropped and he took his lower lip between his teeth.

"_Dude, don't cry. It's going to be okay. You'll be fine."_ Judging by the way I'd said it, I'm pretty sure I didn't believe my own words.

"_How do you know?"_

"_Just remember what I told you, alright? What I told you in the hospital? You remember, don't you?"_

Tweek swallowed back his tears, but nodded.

They finally released each other's pinkies, letting their hands drop back into their laps slowly.

"_You will be back, won't you?" _I heard Craig mumble softly.

"_I—I don't know."_

Tweek moved suddenly, placing his hand on the merry-go-round to steady himself as he leaned forward.

Then the video cut out.

That was okay, though. I knew what happened next. In fact, I knew everything. I knew all about his triple-knot shoelaces and how he eventually gave up wearing them for ankle boots instead. I knew all about the rock collection—he had forty-seven different kinds, and I'd spent long afternoons in his room letting him recite all their scientific names to me. I knew all about the plastic rings. Mine was in my treasure chest, right there under my bed, and had been there every day ever since this video was taken.

I even remembered the hospital, the day we were rushed to Hell's Pass after beating each other to a pulp on the playground. I could still feel my swollen eyelids, my cut lips, my bloody nose. I remembered the fight that ensued on our hospital beds, too, and I remember lying awake for long hours afterward, afraid that if I slept he would kick my ass in my sleep. I remembered the awkward small talk we'd finally made afterward and the apologies we'd mumbled between tight lips.

I remembered what I told him, how I'd swallowed my pride and told him I thought he was amazing, that I was impressed by how someone so small could so easily kick my ass, that I never wanted to fight him ever again for as long as we both lived. I told him he was stronger than me, stronger than anyone I'd ever met, and he didn't need to be afraid of anything in the whole world.

Most importantly of all, I remembered what happened at the end of this video, what happened after the footage cut out.

I touched my fingers to the space on the corner of my lips, and I could _feel_ him, not the Tweek that had placed his lips there this morning or last night, but the Tweek that had kissed me there when we were eight and nine years old and didn't want tomorrow to ever come.

Memories I never knew were mine all came flooding back, like they'd never left me.

I needed to talk to Tweek.


	11. Acclimation

long time no see! happy new year and merry christmas readers thanks for the patience sorry this took so long :(

recap: store was robbed. craig has a sleepover at tweek's. tweek was being vague and confusing. craig finds a video. craig needs to talk to tweek.

* * *

I sat in silence for most of the car ride to school Monday morning. With me slouched deep in the front passenger seat, my arms crossed and my knees propped against the dashboard, my vantage point offered me a view of my legs, a cloudless sky, and little else. I was too lazy to sit up or change my position, so when I started to get nauseous I sighed deeply and leaned my head back against the headrest, sliding my eyes shut.

Being that Clyde was driving the two of us, I had expected to be bombarded with a barrage of questions for the entire ride. After all, we'd had an _exciting_ weekend, and I'm sure he had a thousand and one questions that I hadn't been able to adequately answer when we saw each other last. I could think of three off the top of my head that were likely to fly out of his mouth the minute he saw me, none of which I had any desire to talk about, and I was prepared to bullshit my way out of each and every one.

Understandably enough, his first words to me when I threw open the passenger side door were, "what the hell, why didn't you pick up your phone last night, asshole?" I hadn't responded to him, though, nor had I said anything else or even looked at him for the rest of the way. I didn't have much of an excuse after all; I'd intentionally let my cell phone go to voice mail when he called me last night, and I'd refused the house phone when Bea tried to hand it to me.

Normally my silence isn't enough to deter him when something is bugging him. He rarely gave a fuck if I wanted to hear his thoughts; they were bound to come flying out of his mouth anyway. Today, though, he was being surprisingly courteous. When I didn't answer him for a solid three minutes, he simply sighed and turned the radio on, setting it at a reasonable volume and remaining silent for the rest of the trip. Even with my eyes closed, I could feel him shooting me glances every couple of seconds, but that was the extent of our interaction.

That left me to my own thoughts, and right now I had only one thing on my mind.

You'd think it would be the store's robbery from this weekend, but no. Sure as I was that it was one of the many things Clyde was going to bring up, the minute he didn't I shoved it in the back of my mind to be dealt with later. It wasn't really my problem. I obviously didn't steal anything. Reflecting upon the evening and replaying it a thousand times in my head (for reasons unrelated to the break-in), I'd ultimately reasoned that there was no opportunity for Tweek to have taken anything, so I ultimately and confidently ruled him out as a suspect.

No, once I'd found that video of Tweek and I under my bed the night before, everything else going on in my life right now had a tough time competing with it for my attention.

I had to talk to him, that much was certain. Simple as it sounds, and perhaps simple as it might have been for literally any other person on the planet, it seemed a lot more petrifying given the context of our relationship.

Over and over again I ran through all the possible scenarios - what I would say, how I would say it, his reaction, and what it would spell for our future. My imagination produced a variety of outcomes, a flavorful array of altered details and premises. Some ended worse than others (_"you think this fucking changes anything, Craig? You still forgot! You still __forgot__!")_. Some were nothing more than too-optimistic and unrealistic fantasies that I knew I entertained for the sake of pacifying my own nerves.

And it would need to be in person, of course. Driven by a sudden rush of impulse last night, I'd actually gone so far as to grab my phone off the side table and thumb through my address book to find his number. It would have been so easy this way. I'd never been a fan of phone conversations, but I was even less of a fan of face-to-face conversations. Over the phone meant no eye contact, no visible nervous ticks, no room to choke or pussy out - I could say my peace as one-sidedly as I so desired and he could take it or leave it, but it wouldn't be my problem anymore, not after I was done talking.

I couldn't, though. His name glowed in the screen of my phone as I cradled it between my fingers, staring at me while I stared back, and I knew I couldn't bring myself to do it. Not like this. I needed him to see my face when the words left my mouth just as badly as I needed to see his reaction. It wasn't something I was looking forward to, and it would be a lie if I said I wasn't terrified, but I needed to talk to him in person, no distance or walls or technology separating us.

…which was considerably less easy. But how often are important things ever easy?

Fortunately (or unfortunately, I suppose), my fretting was for nothing. First through fifth period came and went without me running into Tweek even once. To top it off, when Clyde and I approached our table at lunch, we found Token and only Token awaiting us.

I'd flinched once my eyes had landed on his lone figure, an unpleasant mixture of disappointment and surprise socking me hard enough that I hesitated mid-step and almost stopped walking completely. I recovered quickly, though, determined not to let my body's involuntary reactions get the better of me. Not wanting to make this a bigger deal than it needed to be and wanting to appear ever nonchalant in the eyes of my friends, I smoothed away any trace of shock that may have colored my face, and slid quietly onto the lunch table bench next to Clyde.

Token didn't comment on it and I certainly wasn't planning on it myself, so, after an agonizingly long lull that took place once we sat down, Clyde was finally the one to ask, "where's Tweek?"

Token shrugged. "Dunno. I waited for him outside of his history class, but he never showed. I assumed he'd left already."

I continued not to speak and barely moved, hoping my lack of outward reaction fully betrayed how rampantly my mind was whirling after Token's remark.

"Huh. Weird," Clyde mumbled, grabbing his sandwich and raising it tentatively to his lips. "You didn't piss him off, did you, Craig?"

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're usually the one who pisses him off," Token said.

"Plus, you were the last one to see him," Clyde added.

He was referring to prom night, and I thought surely now was the time for him to bring up at least one of the many things he hadn't got a chance to ask me about this morning or the night before. To confirm this, I glanced at Clyde through my peripherals, watching him chew his sandwich pensively, the pace of his jaw slowing gradually as he considered what he'd just said. I could practically hear the gears turning in his brain.

"Speaking of which…" he said finally, as if the idea was slowly dawning on him. I watched his sandwich gradually descend toward the table as he lowered his arms.

When I ran out of ways to further delay the inevitable (outside of getting up and running away from the table, at least), I braced myself mentally for the oncoming barrage, and began counting down the seconds until Clyde has his fucking revelation.

Six whole seconds later and he actually let go of his sandwich with one hand so he could use it to snap.

"Shit, you left prom together, didn't you? Christ." He glanced at Token, his eyebrows furrowing together as if he was actually disappointed in himself. "We forgot to interrogate him."

Token snorted derisively in response. "Oh, goodness, how silly of us."

"Right?" Clyde's eyes fell on me. "I tried calling you, man, what gives?"

My mouth popped open ready to deliver a sarcastic remark, but he placed his hand out to silence me. "Never mind, skip it. Just tell us everything about that night." He paused. "Okay, not _everything_. Please spare any details that qualify for anything higher than a PG-13 rating."

I rolled my eyes. "Nothing happened. Anyway, it's none of your business. Either of you."

"Bullshit! You told me you were going to finally tell him! That's the only reason I let you borrow my key ring to the store - which, by the way, I'm going to need back."

Token, watching me pull my backpack into my lap and start digging around for the key ring I knew I threw in there this morning, frowned and asked, "wait, what does your little grocery story have to do with Craig's confession?"

"I wanted to tell him in the place that reunited the two of us," I said as I tossed the keys into the backpack Clyde was now holding open. "I thought it would be, um, symmetrical or something."

Clyde sighed and gazed over at me, resting his chin in his hands as he did. "Our Craig's a little cutie, ain't he?"

"Ugh, stop."

"Wait, so - " Token interjected. "Not that I'm not totally proud of you buddy, because I am, but - so that means you were the last person in the store last night, then?" He turned to look at Clyde. "Do you think this might have anything to do with… Y'know. The theft?"

I had my counterargument ready for that, but Clyde spoke before I could.

"Not now, Craig hasn't finished telling his story yet."

"'_Not now'?" _Token asked, balking._ "_Don't you think this is a little more important?"

"Dude, am I the only one who wants to know what Tweek said?"

"Well, no, but - "

"Alright, so stop interrupting!" He turned to me again. "Tell us the story!"

"There's no story to tell, you gaywad, and if there were, I'm not about to share it with you."

"Hey, dude, remember what we talked about before we left for prom? The whole _telling each other shit because we're best friends_ thing? I am now invoking that right."

He was right of course, and for anything else I might have given up a long time ago just to get him to stop whining about it. At this point, though, half the reason I didn't want to talk about this with him was because he looked so goddamn eager for a particular answer I was probably not able to satisfy him with. I almost felt a little bad for having to break it to him.

I sighed.

"You really want to know what his answer was?"

Clyde nodded, looking very much like an agitated chihuahua.

"Well," I said as I leaned my cheek against my hand and gestured half-heartedly to the empty seat beside Token, "do you see him anywhere? Allow that to clue you in."

As if forgetting that the seat was vacant, both Token and Clyde glanced over, and you could actually see the excitement draining from their faces as realization hit them both.

"Oh," said Token.

They glanced up at me almost simultaneously and when I bothered to make eye contact with them, I found myself faced with two very different reactions.

Token wore an expression one might save for a funeral, a wretched look of pity and sympathy, like he needed to give me a hug to make himself feel better. He'd had his hand out, like he wanted to reach out to me and pat me or something, but he pulled it back into a loose fist, biting his lip as he did. I immediately averted my eyes from him, but Clyde's face was no more comforting. His mouth was gaping open, his eyebrows furrowed, his hands twitching in front of him, palms up and open as if an explanation to his confusion was floating somewhere invisibly in front of him and would fall into his hands.

"_What?_" he demanded, his voice squeaking slightly in his disbelief. "He said _no? _To _YOU?" _

I snorted a humorless little laugh, raising an eyebrow, "I'm not exactly the world's most desirable person, Clyde. Don't sound so surprised."

"No, I just - " His hand flew to his forehead, painfully gripping it between his index finger and thumb as if doing so would produce answers for him the harder he did so. His other hand made small circles in the air, and he started blinking rapidly. "The flirting! The touching! The blatant eye-fucking! It was just so obvious!"

"'_Eye…fuc - _?' What - I - Clyde - " I sputtered, my face heating up.

"No, you don't understand!" Clyde continued as he slammed his hands on the table for emphasis. "Have you ever seen _The Bachelor_? It's like, okay, you think he and this one girl are hitting it off really well, always smiling at each other and hanging out in the hot tub and shit. Totally into each other."

The more he went on, the more his voice started to crack a little like he was on the verge of tears, and the sound only kept building and building as he continued to speak.

"You know she's going to get the last rose, you're so _sure of it_, so you're sitting on the edge of your goddamn seat through every last terrible episode until you finally get to the finale, and - he doesn't give it to her! He gives it to some other fugly bitch, your girl goes home crying, and it's disappointing as hell! It's a fucking travesty!"

It was a really stupid metaphor - accurate in putting Clyde's feelings into perspective, yes, that boy sure is invested in his trashy reality shows - but a stupid metaphor all the same. So I felt exceptionally ridiculous when, upon hearing it told to me in Clyde's broken tones and with tears welling in his eyes as he equated my rejection with what was the equivalent of a Shakespearean tragedy in his world, I felt a sudden pang shoot through my gut.

I ignored the feeling, though. Squashed it down, kept it quiet. I'd had a lot of practice with that over the years so it wasn't too hard.

"Pull yourself together, Clyde. It's going to be okay."

"Sorry, Craig," Token said, smiling dejectedly. "You can't blame us though. It's pretty sad."

"Wow, thanks."

"No, it's just that we're sad _for _you, y'know? It sucks."

"I don't need the pity party, okay, look at me." I thumped my fingers against my chest for emphasis. "I'm fine. No tears or anything, I'm good. Don't worry so much over something that doesn't even bother me."

"Dude, we were fucking rooting for you man!" Clyde said. "It sucks ass, no matter how much you think it doesn't!"

"I didn't say it didn't suck. I just don't think you guys should have to worry about it, is all."

"Think of it like this," Token said. "It's like we have a little five-year-old. This shy quiet moody little five-year-old and it's his first day of kindergarten and we're scared to send him out on his own. But he's gotta do it, right, he's gotta start somewhere. We just have to hope he'll be okay."

"But then on the first day he gets his ass kicked on the playground!" Clyde chimed in. "And his teacher's mean and he dropped his lunch on the ground and nobody shared the glue with him! He's not even crying when he comes home because he thinks he needs to be strong or some shit like that, and he doesn't want us to know how much it sucked!"

Token nodded. "We sent him out with high hopes for his first day, but it all goes wrong. It sucks, right? We just want him to be happy, but, it's, like…we can't control what the world has in store for him, y'know?"

"That's you, dude!" Clyde continued. "You've never liked anyone like this before! Token and I were really worried about you! We were hoping things were going to work out! Sucks to have your first big crush end up in fuckin' heartache right off the bat."

"We want you to be happy. You're our best friend, and we just wanted to see you happy."

My friends and I obviously aren't this emotionally vulnerable with one another, so it was all the more intense when their words hit me right in the gut like a sack of bricks. The fact that they cared about me so much that their hearts broke _for me_ was strangely touching.

It was also overwhelming. I rubbed my arm and didn't make eye contact with either of them.

"So, I mean," Token continued, "are you sure you're okay? 'Cause if you're not, we're here for you."

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks." I shrugged. "I appreciate the sentiment, guys, I really do. But, I mean…that's just life, right? It sucks sometimes and then it doesn't. Whatever. I'm a big boy. I can handle myself."

"Aw, Clyde," Token said. "Our little man is growing up."

"Shut the hell up," I mumbled around a small smile. I looked up at them in time to catch Token casting a meaningful glance at Clyde, who, from the corner of my eye, I saw grin wildly and wiggle his eyebrows in response. I unfortunately knew what that look meant.

"Guys, no. I'm serious. _No_."

I was too late. Token had already stood up. Clyde started scooting closer to me. I scooted away, but Token had already walked around to my side of the table and plopped down beside me. Left with no route to escape except slipping under the table or falling backwards off the bench (I did consider both options, mind you) I was forced to sit there and be subjected to both their arms wrapping around me, pinning my arms to my sides.

"It'll be okay, buddy," Token said, his cheek squashed against mine.

"There's plenty of fish in the sea!" Clyde added. His left hand was petting my right arm. "'Course it did take us forever to get you interested in anyone, who knows how long it'll be before the next eligible suitor comes along."

"Get the hell off me," I growled, shoving against them. "It sounds like you're trying to marry off your eldest daughter to some wealthy landowner." Their grips were tight so it took me a bit of effort on my part to wriggle free. I held out two hands, placing one of each other their chests, and shoved them as far away from me as they would allow.

"Who's going to take care of the estate when your father and I pass on, Craigabeth?" Clyde cried in a godawful attempt at a British accent.

"That Mr. Broflovski fellow would be a smart match," Token added just as terribly, taking care to pantomime holding a monocle to his eye.

"He's unattached, too! You'd be wise to court him!" Clyde said and he daintily lifted his soda to his lips with his pinky sticking out and everything.

"Ew, God, now I'm imagining it. I might actually gag."

They laughed and even I cracked a grin. It was kind of weird. With Tweek gone, it was back to the three of us, as it had been for years before he'd walked back into my life. It almost felt like everything had reverted back to normal, except it hadn't and it probably wouldn't ever, not with all that had happened in the last few months. And of course, the fact that Tweek wasn't here right now meant far more to me than simply a missing presence at the table. We still needed to talk.

I understood things being awkward and him needing his space or whatever, but what I had to say was pretty important and it bugged me that he wasn't here so I could get it over with. In fact, the rest of the day thereafter I was desperately itching to grab my phone and call or text him, but I was pretty proud of my ability to resist.

Clyde and Token didn't ask any more questions about anything else after that. I guess they still felt sorry for me, and if it meant I didn't have to talk about this anymore then I was okay with that. We moved on to talk about Clyde and Bebe getting back together during prom - apparently she'd ditched Kyle to hang out with Clyde or something to that extent and one magical evening later they were dating again. For most of the story, however, my eyes were still fixated on the vacant spot across the table from me and I couldn't focus at all on what Clyde was saying.

The rest of the day came and went. After school, Clyde drove himself and I to work. That day was our first day back since the theft happened. On the drive over, Clyde explained that he hadn't told our boss about letting me borrow the key and come in Saturday night, and he wanted to keep it that way. So when we saw Mr. Johnson there waiting for us, of course the first thing he does after he greets us is thank us for our honesty.

"You can't trust people, kids, never forget that."

Clyde and I exchanged a glance we hoped he didn't notice, and when he finally left, we both let out a sigh of relief.

The rest of the afternoon and evening went on without a hitch and when it was time to go we packed up our stuff and headed out.

That's when Clyde had to lock up the store.

"Hey," he said suddenly, cradling the key ring in his hand. "There's a key missing."

I was standing behind him at the time, staring down the street and hardly paying attention to what was going on. "What? There's a billion keys there, what are you talking about?"

"Y'know how there's two keys to the store on the ring? One is missing."

I froze, glad he was standing with his back to me so he couldn't see my face. Without hesitating, I quickly said as nonchalantly as I could, "oh, right. I forgot to put that one back on."

He stood up straight, pivoted slowly to stare at me, and after an excruciatingly long look at my face (and thank God for my perfect poker face) he finally said, "…what?"

"I didn't want to bring the whole ring with me when I took Tweek here that night, so I just brought the one key. I forgot to put it back on the ring."

He kept staring at me.

"What? You don't believe me?"

After another elongated pause, he said in a tone that betrayed the conviction of his words, "no, I believe you. Just bring it back to me, okay?"

"Yeah, of course."

I was thankful he didn't insist on waiting for me to grab the key and bring it back down to him when he dropped me off at home later. In fact, the minute the car stopped I bolted out, yelling a thanks for the ride over my shoulder, and slammed my front door behind me as soon as I got it open. When I was in, I immediately ran upstairs, dumped all my shit on the floor, and threw myself back on the bed. I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I didn't have the key. I had brought the entire key ring with me during prom, and I hadn't remove a single key from it. Everything I'd told Clyde was a lie, but that didn't change the fact that there was now a key missing and I didn't have it.

But I was pretty sure I knew who did.

* * *

When Clyde picked me up the next morning, his first question when I entered the car was, "where's the key?"

Fortunately I was able to blame it on my absentmindedness that I'd forgotten it once again. For once I was happy to be such a forgetful person. I was also happy we were running late so it didn't give him any opportunity to park the car and wait for me to go inside and get it. Instead, Clyde merely sighed and left it at that. I knew I could only use that excuse for so long before I needed to come up with a solution to this problem.

Finding Tweek had become even more imperative than ever. I'd tried calling and texting him the night before but I'd received no response, so I had to bank on him showing up today at school.

The morning dragged, if only because I wanted lunch to get here faster. I got so impatient that I ended up waiting in front of his history classroom at the beginning of fifth period instead of going to my Spanish class. I figured if he was going to bolt when class ended I might as well apprehend him there when class started. That was unreasonable and little stalkery of me, I'll admit. Hell, I was certainly guilty of avoiding people I didn't want to confront all the time. But I was lying if I thought I was okay with this. I wanted answers, and I didn't like being ignored, so I had planned on nipping this weed in the bud.

That never happened, however, because while I stood outside the door waiting for Tweek to show up, I was approached and questioned by a teacher for being out of class and not having a pass. I tried convincing her I had gotten lost, but I'm a shit liar, so she shook her head and pointed down the hall, telling me to get back to my classroom.

Of course, I couldn't leave a conversation like that without flipping somebody off and this woman unfortunately happened to be the only one in the vicinity. My punishment involved a visit with the guidance counselor, who is this cute and bubbly twenty-five year-old post-grad psychology student with whom I have developed something akin to friendship from having been sent to see her so much. We don't even talk about my "issues" anymore; she knows as well as I do that half of these visits are a result of someone else's bullshit, so we kill time by playing these dusty old 90's board games she has stored away in her office or sharing a pack of Ritz crackers. Then she sends me back to class.

When fifth period finally ended, I power walked so briskly down the hall to get outside that I didn't bother waiting for Clyde and almost ran over a freshman. To my horror, Tweek was once again not at the table. In his place today was Red, sitting next to Token. That threw me for a second.

"What are you doing here?" I asked her. My eyes trailed from her face to arms down to her left hand where I noticed it was resting on the table, her fingers laced with Token's.

"Token and I are dating," she said. "You'd think this would make complete sense to you."

"You weren't here yesterday."

"God, we're not attached at the hip!"

I plopped down on the bench, looking at Token. "Why would you willingly subject yourself to this?"

"I'm right here, you jerkwad," she snapped.

"A fact I'm so painfully aware of." I sighed. "I hope this isn't going to be a regular thing."

"What, me sitting here? What is your deal this _exclusivity_ anyway? What are you, nine?" She scoffed, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. "Token was alone and I just wanted to keep him company."

"He wouldn't _be_ alone every day if a certain someone weren't avoiding us." I turned to Token. "You still haven't seen him?"

Token shook his head.

"Who, your baby-boo?" Red asked with a smirk.

Clyde snickered, and I was remembering why I had insisted upon exclusivity at our table.

"I've never pinned you as the concerned girlfriend type, Craig, but I guess life's full of little surprises like that."

"Stop."

She began absentmindedly picking at a thread on her violet cardigan. "If you care to know, I don't think he's avoiding just you four. I haven't seen him in class at all this week."

I raised an eyebrow. "You have a class with him?"

"Physics, third period. He's been absent."

Absent. I hadn't considered that. This certainly changed things. He might be sick. The soonest I was able to, I texted and called him on my cell phone, but received no answer. After waiting a few minutes and receiving no response, I texted and called Tweek again. I repeated this several more times, only pausing to lengthen the time between calls and hopefully dispel how pathetically clingy this might appear.

By the end of Tuesday, I think I had made 5 calls, 8 text messages and left 3 voice mails. They all consisted of variants on the same general thought: Tweek where have you been are you okay it's me Craig get back to me when you can.

I considered actually physically going to his house to see if he was alright, but I wasn't keen on having to interact with his parents again if it wasn't an emergency and I didn't necessarily have to. This thus forced me on Wednesday to resort to one of my last options, one I had been hoping to avoid.

Being that I was too distracted by this whole situation to use my lunchtime properly anyway, I chose that time to hunt down Kenny and drag him off by the crook of his elbow. He'd been sitting with his dumb friends at the time, so I unfortunately had to breathe the same air as them for a few more minutes than I would have otherwise liked to. When we were far enough away, I immediately demanded if he'd heard from Tweek at all.

"Maybe I have and maybe I haven't," he mumbled, glancing at his fingernails. At the last second his eyes snapped to me. "How was prom? You guys bang or what?"

"Cut the crap and answer my goddamn question. He's been MIA for the past three days."

He sighed, placing his hands on his hips and glancing skyward. "I called him last night since I hadn't seen him since Saturday, but he told me he couldn't talk and not to call him or see him for awhile and hung up. That's it."

He'd answered for Kenny, and not for me. That was fantastic. The only reason I didn't want to resort to asking this asshole was because I hated to concede to the idea that maybe Tweek still liked Kenny and them a little more than us.

"Did he sound sick at all?"

"Sounded fine to me."

And he wasn't even fucking sick? So he was just ditching then, and deliberately not speaking to me. It was looking more and more like I would have to end up actually _going_ there if I wanted to talk to him, but if he was trying so hard not to talk to me, then that would probably make things worse.

"It's okay to admit you miss him, Stumpy, it's a perfectly natural feeling."

"Shut up."

I walked away from Kenny and called and texted Tweek another handful of times, and when it produced zero results, I reluctantly concluded that the only other thing I could do was go to his house.

So after school that's exactly what I did.

Not wanting to walk over there at eight in the evening, I ended up having to ditch work that day. This required informing Clyde first, since technically he was my superior. I hadn't really spoken to Clyde all that day, either. Besides skipping lunch to go confront Kenny, I'd also managed to forgo my ride with him to school in the morning. As you know, I'm a _big fan_ of physical activity and loosing precious hours of sleep in favor of school, so naturally I was super stoked to wake up extra early to bike to school in the morning, all to avoid fumbling over the new excuse I would inevitably have to give Clyde as to why I had yet to return the store key to him.

Being that I still had yet to come up with a good lie by the time I saw him in our only shared class together at the end of the day, I had to make my interaction with him brief. I came in as close to the bell as possible so as to not give him a chance to loiter around my desk before class and talk to me, and when I finally sat down, I quickly scribbled a note to him and tossed it over my shoulder before he could beat me to the punch.

_I gotta skip work today if that's okay. I'm not really feeling well. I'll cover for you some other time, I promise. _

It didn't take him very long to respond. The crumbled up ball landed on my desk before our teacher even got up from her desk to begin her lesson for the day.

_Sure I guess? You okay? Is it TERMINAL?_

I stared at the note, not sure if I should respond to it. He'd given me the okay, but I supposed I could spare one more exchange.

_Do you think I'd be sitting here in class right now if it was terminal? Look, I'll be fine, I'll be back tomorrow. It's just one day. _

Again, no more than a minute passed before the paper was back on my desk.

_Alright alright I understand! And hey dude where've you been all day? I haven't seen you at all!_

That was all the conversation I could make for now without giving too much of my true intentions away. In order to more convincingly avoid responding to him, I purposefully made and averted eye contact with our teacher more times for the duration of this class than I had collectively with any teacher for the last three years of high school. Everyone knows you don't make and avert eye contact with a teacher if you want to avoid getting called on in class. I'd mastered the ability to avoid this unnecessary attention and avoid getting called on for all of my school life, but I needed to undo all of that, just this once. I did it so many times during this class period that she ended calling on me to answer almost every other question and read every problem out aloud.

Since getting called on was my goal, I'd forced myself to pay attention to better accommodate the situation, so everything went pretty smoothly on my end. Clyde would understand that I couldn't respond to his note, but I could probably imagine his surprise at how participant I'd been for class. I'm fairly certain everyone was surprised. I could feel Stan Marsh's eyes on me every time I spoke up. This was probably the most my class had heard my voice that entire year.

On the bright side, I'm sure my class points had gone up by a few percentages just from this one day alone. That should tide me over to slack off for the remainder of the year.

When the bell rang, I didn't linger long enough for Clyde to speak to me. I quickly gathered up my shit, shoved it into my bag, spared him a quick wave, then dashed out the door before he even acknowledged what I was doing. I made my way to the bike rack I'd chained my bike to and, after unlocking it, took off in the direction of the residential area of South Park.

Since I don't drive, I have a bit of a lousy sense of direction, so, coupled with my godawful memory, it took me a bit of time before I was able to navigate my way onto Tweek's street. In the amount of time it took me to get there, I'd thought a lot about what I was about to do. Tried to rehearse it in my head. I couldn't imagine a single scenario where bringing up the lost key or the video camera would end well for me, and this entire idea of chasing Tweek down to his home was sounding less and less appealing. I'd already began to entertain ideas of giving up and turning around to go home, but that was around the time I was starting to see houses and landmarks that looked familiar, and I knew I was near to his house. I'd gone this far; I figured I might as well see him.

His mustard colored house rose in the distance and I slowed my pedaling so that the bike cruised by at a crawl. I'd had my eyes trained on the second floor window, the one right above the front door, where I knew his room was. His curtains were drawn and for a brief second I considered standing on his lawn and just calling to him up at his window.

It was only when I placed my foot out on the snow-covered asphalt to halt the bike that I noticed that his garage door was open. I hopped off my bike, wheeling it with my hands as I took steps closer to the house. Leaving the bike to lean against the mailbox right by the front lawn, I walked around the one car in the driveway and peered into the garage to investigate.

Inside were mountains of cardboard boxes. Most were closed and with various labels written along the sides, but a few were scattered around the garage floor with their lids opened.

I wanted to get a closer look but wasn't sure how close I was allowed to approach their area of their property without feeling invasive. That's when Tweek's mother stepped out from around one of the mountains of boxes. She was holding something wrapped in newspaper in her hands and when she had deposited it in the nearest open box, she picked up a cigarette from an ashtray I hadn't noticed before and drew it to her lips.

Now that I noticed it, I could smell it too and wondered why I hadn't seen or smelled it sooner. Likely it's because I had no idea she smoked and would have never pinned her as the type, but I suppose there was a plethora of other things about this family that I had no idea about. She held it delicately between her fingers and the languid way she went about raising it to her mouth and lowering it back down to her side was weirdly fascinating to watch.

I debated walking any further. I didn't really want to interact with her at all, but she was like a dragon standing between me and my true destination and was inevitably something I had to get through. While I stood around weighing my options, though, she spotted me in her peripherals, raising her head in my direction.

"Craig, sweetie! This is a surprise!" she said in that soft twinkly voice of hers.

I was thankful for the cigarette in her hand, as it kept her from reaching out to hug me, but I saw her put it out suddenly and I kept my distance.

"Hey, Mrs. Tweak." I spared a look at the boxes. "Spring cleaning?"

She appeared momentarily surprised, then glanced down to where I was looking and her face softened. "Something like that…" She dusted her hands on her apron and looked up at me again. "Well! What brings you here today? Don't you have an afterschool job of some sort?"

"Yes, uh, I took the day off. To see Tweek, actually. That's why I'm here."

She didn't say anything in response to that. In fact, after I spoke, she turned away from me, taking a few steps back into her garage to where I could now see her procuring mugs and dishes out of a laundry basket before she wrapped them each in sheets of newspaper.

I stuffed my hands in my pockets nervously and waited for her to at least respond. When the silence following my words became excruciatingly lengthy, I finally said, "he hasn't been at school at all this week and I figured he might be sick. Just wanted to check on him." I hoisted my backpack higher on my shoulder for effect. "I brought his homework assignments."

Something about what I said finally triggered a response from her. She glanced up at me again, smiling gently now. "Ah, yes. Sick. Yes, he hasn't been feeling well, so I've kept him home."

Oh _really_? That wasn't what Kenny said to me.

"What's wrong with him?"

"Just…a flu. Nothing dire, but he does need his rest." She took a few steps toward me, the bells on her earrings tinkling as she moved. "It was very sweet of you to miss work just to bring him his schoolwork. You're a good boy." More steps, more tinkling. "You can go ahead and hand those to me. I'll give them to him, and I'll let him know you stopped by."

"Actually," I said. "I was hoping to see him. I just wanted to talk about something with him -"

"Oh, no, dear, he's much too sick right now to be having visitors. He's been in bed all day and I'd really like him to rest and recover. Plus, I wouldn't want you to catch what he has." She kept smiling all while she spoke, but it had stopped looking friendly long ago.

"Please, it'll be really quick," I continued. "I can even stand on the other side of the door so I don't breathe the same air as him or whatever, it doesn't matter to me, I just-"

"Craig." The way she said my name made me shut up immediately. Her tone had completely changed. I was used to softness and the floaty, tinkling mannerisms of her speech. But she'd my name so sternly and commandingly, in a shift that was so unexplainably sudden it was like the water of a babbling stream instantaneously solidifying into ice. Her face too had changed, the smile of her lips straightening into a pert line, her eyes narrowing, her fingers tightening at her sides.

If I hadn't heard or seen it in person, I wouldn't have believed her capable of looking and sounding like this, but in an instant, it was gone. If I'd blinked I probably would have missed it. Her whole demeanor softened and she cocked her head when she looked at me, all the tenderness flooding back into her eyes.

"Dear, please trust me. As Tweek's mother, I believe I know what's best for him. And right now, it isn't you."

We stood at a standstill for a long time, her gaze unwavering, and after a moment, when I'd let the sudden stab of fear dissipate, I relented, reaching into my bag and removing the folder of assignments I'd collected from Tweek's classrooms at lunch. She accepted it from me, smiling and brightening up as she did so.

"I'm so sorry, dear, really, under other circumstances, you'd be more than welcome here. For now, perhaps come back some other time, yes? And make sure you let us all know before you do."

I nodded, not sure what else I could say, then retreated back to where I'd left my bike resting against their mailbox. As I rolled it off down their driveway, Mrs. Tweak suddenly called, "and Craig?"

I turned to look at her.

"When I say 'come back later,' I of course mean…after Tweek has recovered. In fact, for awhile, until you absolutely know for certain that he's well, it would probably be best if you didn't come back at all. I wouldn't want him to know you've been coming to see him and he's had to miss you. It would upset him too much and I don't want anything impeding his recovery."

This didn't feel good to me, but there was little I could do outside of sneaking around to the back of the house and scaling the walls. I glanced up, staring at Tweek's window where it was located right above the front door. He was so close, right there. Although, who's to say he was even home? Who's to say anything she said was true?

I stared back at her. She was still smiling.

"Right."

So there went that plan.

* * *

In my sleep, I see stars, thousands of them, everywhere, so far and yet so close I feel I could touch them if I held my fingers out to do so. I'm in a desert, vast and red against the dark blue sky, and I'm standing at the edge of a cliff. I glance down and far below my feet are clouds and a bright blue sky, like I'm looking into a giant puddle that opens up into a different, mirrored world to my own. I take hasty steps backward, until I hit something, and when I turn around I see it's Tweek. He's holding a sack and without looking at me, he strides forward, close to the cliff's edge. I try to say something to stop him, but my voice sounds like it's coming from underwater, muddled and indecipherable. When he reaches the edge, he upturns the bag, and into the ravine, he dumps cold coins, thousands of them in an endless stream. My body started moving involuntarily, my feet taking shaky steps forward, my hands arms stretching out. I tried to pull them back to me but I was powerless to do so.

Then I pushed him.

I woke up covered in sweat.

* * *

I didn't get much sleep after that, and I went to school groggy and uncomfortable. I biked to school once more and at lunch, I found Kenny again.

"He said he didn't want to see you?" I asked him.

"That's what he said."

Kenny wouldn't work, then. Clyde and Token wouldn't work either. I didn't want them doing my shit for me anymore and anyway I needed a neutral party. A nice, likeable, neutral party that not even Tweek could reject if he showed up on his doorstop. I needed someone who had no affiliation to me.

Kenny stood by patiently while I racked my brain for my next move, watching me tug and twist the strings of my hat tightly around my fingers

"Who in our class lives the closest to him? Do you know?" I tried to keep any knowledge about my classmates as minimal as possible, so I certainly hadn't he faintest clue.

"Uh, Bebe lives a street over, Jimmy two houses down-Oh! Petuski, he lives across the street and three houses down."

Without thanking Kenny or even acknowledging what he said, I spun around and walked away immediately, ignoring the cries of confusion and protest he shouted at my retreating figure. Only when I put a few yards of distance between him and I did I stop to rifle through my backpack for a loose, unmarked sheet of notebook paper. Finding one and a pen, I set off again for the backfield that stretched out far behind my school's gymnasium.

The perimeter of my school is surrounded by a high chain-link fence, which really only completes the "state penitentiary" atmosphere I'm sure this place was going for. Near the section of the fence that bordered the backfield sat a tall row of aspen trees, and between that row of trees and the fence behind them was a dip in the ground that led to a long stretch of dirt. The elevation of the dip meant that all the rainwater and melted snow water seeped from the grass and trees and collected down here, leaving the dirt continually damp and muddy.

It was here that I found Reggie Petuski.

That name may not sound familiar, and that's because, to most of us, he was more unpleasantly well-known as Dog Poo.

It's not the most flattering nickname, but everyone has been calling him Dog Poo pretty much since our elementary school days. For reasons that still elude those of us that remember that day, he showed up to the classroom one morning covered in dirt and grime and smelling like wet dog. There was even this little flock of flies following him around, and he actually took to naming and addressing most of them.

I'm sure it would shock no one to discover that it was Eric Cartman who coined the name in the first place (although I believe his initial words were, "dog shit" rather than "dog poo"). His friends caught on, then some of the more popular girls caught on, then eventually by the end of the day everyone was calling him that.

Despite being a perfectly genial and well-mannered guy, someone who could probably rise in the social hierarchy if he so well pleased, it was by his own choice that he continued to go out in public covered in various shades of brown and smelling fouler than the boy's locker room. No one knew why he was like this and no one thought to ask, and people in general are often resistant to change, so the name stuck.

Or at least it stuck with most of us.

Kenny is actually the first person I've ever known who's insisted on calling Dog Poo by anything but that horrid nickname. When I asked why, he explained to me that he felt like he was returning his identity to him by refusing the nickname. This was important to Kenny, for whatever reason, and, because it sounded reasonable enough to me, I opted to pick up the practice as well.

"Petuski," I said when I was close enough for him to hear me but far enough away so that I didn't have to smell him.

Reggie glanced up from where he was laying flat on his belly, his attention previously fixed on the pages of what looked to be a copy of _Les Miserables_. He smiled a closed-lip smile.

I smiled back. "Dude, can you do me a solid?"

His reaction was less immediate, his eyebrows slowly knitting into a slight frown.

Realizing I was being a little forward, I tried again.

"I'm not bothering you, am I?"

He shook his head vigorously, and when he did, his mousy mop of hair tossed around ridiculously, sending dirt and twigs and grass flying out of it and all over the place.

"Thanks." I moved to sit down in the dirt about two feet away from him, but not before asking, "is it cool if I join you?" He nodded again, more dirt flying out as he did, and I plopped down, quickly reaching into my back pocket to pull out the sheet of paper and pen.

"If you don't mind, I'd like you to give this to someone for me," I said, my attention focused on scribbling on the paper. I glanced up to meet Reggie's eyes. "You know Tweek Tweak, right? He lives on your street."

Reggie nodded furiously, sending more dirt and grass all around him.

"He hasn't been to school in a few days, and I need to talk to him."

My note done, I began creasing and folding the paper, twisting it this way and that until it took on the shape I desired.

"Can you give this to him for me? When you get home from school today?"

It was a boat now, crude, but the only other shape I knew how to fold paper into besides an airplane.

Crawling closer to him, I held it out, and he didn't hesitate to accept it from me.

"The thing is I can't go because she specifically told me not to come back, and I couldn't ask any of my friends do this because she'd know this probably has something to do with me." I went back into my bag again and pulled out another folder of his homework assignments that I had collected. I handed it to Reggie. "As far as she knows, we don't hang out. Make sure it stays that way. If she asks, you're just there to give him homework. You don't know me. You don't associate with me. She's not going to let you see him, but you have to do what you can just to get five seconds with him. Just make sure he gets the boat, make sure he sees it. Can you do that, man?"

After inspecting the note for a second, turning it over and even pretending to float it along on an invisible river in front of his eyes, he suddenly reached out and patted the back of my hand, still smiling and now nodding.

I automatically flinched at the touch, but didn't pull away. Instead, I tried to return the smile again, but he'd already rolled away to where his canvas messenger lay in the dirt a few feet away. He carefully tucked the boat inside and then rolled back over to me, collecting more mud on his clothes as he did.

"Thanks, bro. I owe you."

I held out a knuckle and he bumped it automatically.

The deed done, I placed my palms flat against the mud, ready to push myself back to my feet.

Before I heaved myself forward, however, my eyes flickered to glance at him again, and I watched him turn back to his book, a soundless sigh shuddering across his shoulders.

I placed my hands back into my lap, remaining where I was.

"Could I crash here with you for the rest of lunch? We could walk to class together. I won't bother you. I swear"

He jumped slightly at the sound of my voice, and when he looked up at me, blinking, it became clear that he was actually surprised by my request.

The surprise didn't last long. His wide eyes and slightly gaping mouth were swiftly replaced by another grin, beaming this time and with a mouthful of teeth. I'm pretty sure there was a clump of dirt between his molars, but it didn't make it any less charming.

Before I could do anything else, he eagerly patted the dirt next to him, then pointed upward.

Following his silent instructions, I eased myself into a lying position, with my back flat on the ground and my gaze fixed upward. Peeking through the canopy of green leaves above us, the sky stretching wide and blue, a field of puffy white clouds crawled in varied shapes across my line of sight.

He leaned over close to me. He didn't smell too bad, I noted, maybe like a shirt that had sat in at the bottom of a laundry basket for a few weeks, but nothing too terrible.

When he placed his head close to mine, he bumped them together clumsily, and exclaimed, "cumulus clouds! Gorgeous, huh? That one kinda looks like a puppy!"

I grinned and nodded.

Reggie took that as an invitation to keep talking, which was fine by me, as I had a lot to get off my mind.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't the slightest bit nervous. About him not getting my note, about him not accepting my invitation. Worst of all I was afraid of confronting him and terrified of the hundreds of possible outcomes that could arise from it.

But I had to do something.

When I'd woken up from my nightmare last night, I had a lot of time to think about my situation.

I'd gone almost a week without seeing him again and this whole thing was starting to look all too familiar. I recalled back to a month or so prior, back before this silliness had been considerably less intense and less complicated, when the extent of our relationship was me sitting at my lunch table willing him to sit with me or talk to me or look at me. That seemed like a thousand years ago and like a very different Craig had been the one experiencing it.

So was I going to let this be a repeat of that? Just perpetuate this endless cycle of Craig being too much of a lazy uncaring fuck who gave up on anything that seemed too hard for him? Wait until my friends make the first move for me and accept whatever bullshit comes in my path with no complaint or action on my part?

I had to do something, something that wasn't big, something that wasn't small, something that would make things okay.

It was this or nothing.

It was getting closer to summer now, which meant the weather was getting hotter, more uncomfortable. Back here, though, the heat was barely noticeable. In fact, it was rather nice. The trees cast fat circles of shade around us and the mud wasn't so much wet as it was damp and cool. A low breeze raced through the trees, dancing across my skin, blowing through my hair, ruffling my clothes.

I slid an arm behind my head and let my eyes ease shut, dozing off to the gentle caress of the breeze and the sound of Reggie's seldom-heard voice spouting off cloud types and cloud shapes, right up until I couldn't tell whether I was dreaming them or they were really floating miles above me in the sky.

* * *

Friday is the third day in a row I've skipped my ride to school in the morning with Clyde, but I choose to ride my bike that day with the forethought of my destination after school. By the time I reach South Park Elementary, their dismissal bell has just barely rung and kids have already begun slowly filtering out the front doors.

I parked my bike at an available spot on a bike rack, then sat on the low brick wall next to it and waited. I watched kids and parents pass in and out of the building, saw cars and buses pull up to the curb and take off, all the while hoping I don't look too creepy sitting out here and that no one shoos me away for loitering or some bullshit like that. At some point I see my sister, and when he shy and giggly friends point me out, she glances at me, shoots me a thumbs up, then ushers them all off to the bus stop with her.

When the time between departing children lengthens dramatically, I assume most of the kids have left. I get up and march my way behind the school, to where I know the playground is. The snow has mostly melted and the ground is covered in dirty wet patches of grass, so with each step my shoes slide precariously. I slow my pace, and it lets me soak in my surroundings. I haven't been here in awhile, and it's hauntingly eerie when it's mostly vacated. I like it in a way that I've never liked it when I was a student here and its grounds were constantly filled with kids I knew.

The merry-go-round is exactly where I remember it, lonely and beckoning in the wide expanse of playground. I half-smile at it, as if to reassure it that I was coming, and I'm standing before it in seconds, running my fingers over the chipped paint of the handles.

When I ease myself onto it and sit, it jerks and squeaks and dips low to the ground and I fear it's threatening to give way under my ass. I picture myself busting the damn thing and ruining some kid's day come Monday, and chuckle a little to myself.

Glancing at my phone tells me it's about 3:45. If he was coming on time, it would be relatively soon.

My limbs were too long for me to be on this thing. With my legs drawn to myself, it felt cramped and uncomfortable, so I laid them both straight, my shoes poking out a foot over the edge and hovering above the ground. Idly, I stuck out my foot and pushed it against the ground, letting the merry-go-round turn and turn in a slow circle while I sat and stared out into the distance. Around me, the mountains and trees and buildings became a continuous blur of indecipherable shapes. Loud squeaks and creaks filled the silence around me. This thing hadn't changed a bit.

Then I saw him, small and approaching in the distance, and I stuck my foot out again, stopping it immediately.

I hadn't seen how he had arrived, whether he'd walked or drove or got dropped off. He had his hands shoved in his jacket pockets and his gaze was fixed on his feet. It felt like ages before he got close enough to me to speak.

"Hey," I said, ignoring the flip-flop of my stomach that occurred when he stood before me and raised his eyes to make contact with mine. I hadn't seen him in too long and seeing him now for the first time in awhile put into perspective just how badly I'd noticed his missing presence in my life. I'd been planning to tell him off for ignoring me for the past week but for the life of me I couldn't focus on much else besides the fact that he was in front of me right now.

He twitched in what could be construed as an acknowledging nod, then reaching into his back pocket. "I, uh, I got your boat."

He held it out. It was a bit crumpled from sitting in his pocket, but was mostly intact. From where I was sitting I could make out my handwriting on the side of it, the words, "_Friday. 4pm. South Park Elementary. I'll see you there," _clearly visible.

"You like it? Sorry it's not hardcore, like the fucking Eiffel Tower or something. I'll leave the fancy shit up to you."

He turned it over between his fingers. "Well, the folds could use some work, but it might hold up in a puddle."

"Shut the fuck up," I said through a grin. He smiled, his first of the day, his first I'd seen way too long.

"So," he heaved a small sigh. "What am I doing here exactly?"

I patted the space on the merry-go-round next to me. He hesitated at first, but then eased down next to me. The thing groaned under our combined weight, but it was still able to spin, and when Tweek sat down, it began to do so slowly.

"Haven't seen you around in a few days," I said offhandedly.

He paused before responding, choosing his words carefully as he does. "I've, er, I've been at home."

"No shit. Why the hell were you ignoring me?"

"Is that your one question?" He's smiling, but the smile doesn't reach his eyes.

I didn't return the look and the smile left his face.

"No, we're not doing this game right now," I said. "I'm serious."

"I wasn't ignoring you…specifically. Sometimes I just don't want to be around people or talk to people. It happens. I've done this before."

"Were you even sick?"

"Huh? No?"

"That's what your mom said. I stopped by the other day to drop off your homework."

"Oh, well." He shrugged. "She knows I need to stay home sometimes, obviously; otherwise she'd just make me go to school. She lies for me so no one really asks questions."

"You could've told me that," I said, avoiding eye contact by reaching over for my bag and rifling through it.

"Sorry. To be fair, I'd literally cut off contact from the world. I left my phone in a different room."

"So what changed your mind today?"

"Look at this boat! How could I say no to this?" In my peripherals I saw him turn it over in his hands, a faint look of fondness flooding his face. "And I did eventually check my phone. Sorry I didn't return any of the calls. I wasn't really up for talking."

When I didn't respond, he continued, laughing, "what a needy girlfriend you are, though. Seriously. You averaged about eight calls a day. Don't even get me started on the texts."

"Well, I mean - " I pause in my rifling and shut my eyes tightly, suddenly blurting out, "missed you." Oh, god, that was weird, that was _way too weird _- "I mean, _we_ missed you." Still weird. "Like, we noticed you were missing. Um."

_nice save, moron_

_"_Yeah?"

I snuck a glance at him. He wore a small, hopeful smile. I drank in the sight before staring back into my bag.

"Yeah."

My hands had long since found what I was looking for and I finally pulled it out, holding it before him. "I've got a surprise for you."

When his eyes landed on the video camera, his smile faded and a flush colored his whole face. "Y-you…" He bit his lip hard and tore his gaze from the camera to stare at me with wide eyes. "You still _have_ that?"

I nodded and pushed it into his fingers, which opened up automatically to accept it.

I was hoping that he would press play himself, but even with it cradled between his hands, he merely stared at it like he couldn't believe it was real, so I reached over and pressed it myself.

Judging by the look on his face when the video started, I could tell he knew better than I had what was on it. He looked nervous at first, but as the video progressed, his expression faltered, changed. He was soon smiling, small, then wide, then laughing quietly to himself.

By the end of it, his eyes were downcast again, his eyebrows knitted together.

"I didn't know you kept this," he said quietly, lowering the camera slowly onto his lap.

"Of course."

"I assumed you got rid of it or taped over it or something."

I nodded at it. "Didn't you hear that little dork? He said he didn't want to forget you. Of course he was going to keep the video."

He sat forward, frowning. "But you did forget!"

"I didn't want to! It just happened!"

"'It just happened,'" he sneered. "You had this fucking thing! That was the point of it, so it wouldn't 'just happen'!"

"Yeah, I wondered about that," I said, trying to remain calm so he would hopefully follow suit. "If I remember correctly, after you left, I watched it a lot, maybe at least once a day? The longer you'd been gone, though, the less frequently I watched it. It turned into once every other day, then once a week, then once a month. I think about a year or so after you'd been gone I just stopped watching it altogether."

"_Why?_"

"I think it started making me sad?" I shrugged. "I mean, it was there to remind me you exist, but it also reminded me that I didn't have the real thing. It wasn't the same."

"It made you _sad_, so you let yourself forget? Wow," he shook his head. "What about me, huh? Don't you think it made me _'sad'_ not to even have the option to do that? I didn't even have a video of you I could just FORGET about."

I was quiet a moment. "Would you? If you could? I wouldn't blame you if you said yes, it's okay."

He laughed a harsh little laugh. "What a fucking JOKE. I can't imagine a universe where I wouldn't remember you. You have no idea. Even if I could just forget about you like that, even if I wanted to? It would have been impossible, not with how comfortably you'd made yourself a home in my brain."

He shook his head. "God, you will never understand how badly I clung to you." He looked up at the sky. "I memorized you. I could have recreated your likeness. If I hadn't seen you in a hundred lifetimes, I would always remember you."

"Why?"

He glanced at me. I could see in his eyes that he knew exactly what I was asking, but he still said, "why what?"

"Why did you…cling to me?"

His eyes averted to stare into the horizon. "South Park sucks, but no matter how many places I moved, I missed it. It was home and I couldn't say the same of anywhere else I'd been. I guess I clung to you because my fondest memories of you were my fondest memories of home. I was clinging to my memories of something stable, of something fixed and stationary and unchanging."

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding, my long stream of warm breath visible in the cold air. My insides were churning. In the silence that pervaded, my brain whirled with a single question repeating itself over and over until I felt like the top of my head would pop off and it would spew out like a volcano.

_why me? _

I wanted so badly to say it, with only the fear of what he might say holding me back. Much stronger was the fear that I would wait too long and I would lose the moment and he wouldn't give me an answer at all.

Before I could press further, he started speaking again, and I feared I lost my chance. "Can you imagine? After all that time, I remember everything about you and the first time I see you again in eight years, you don't even know my name." He rubbed at his eye with his knuckle. "What a waste of time."

I remembered back to the day Red had confronted me a few days before prom, when she'd told me she was happy to have finally gotten over her infatuation for me. She too had called her years mooning over me as a waste of time. I suppose this was to be the expectation for anyone who unwisely laid their affections with me. Time wasted. Made sense to me. I could have told anyone that. I should come with a warning label.

"Tweek, I'm a piece of shit," I blurted, staring at him. The suddenness of my comment surprised him into glancing up at me in surprise. "I'm weak and I'm a coward. When my emotions go haywire, I bury them deep and let myself forget. I couldn't deal with you being gone and for eight years I did what I always do and let myself forget. And I was okay with that.

"But you didn't. I don't know what you went through in the past eight years being away from home and all your friends and everything that was familiar. I don't know because I never had to go through it myself, but you did. Your life fucking sucked but you met it head-on, all on your own, without the luxury of blissful ignorance. I mean, I can't imagine your parents were much comfort?"

"Not really, no."

"Didn't think so." In a rush of impulse, I grabbed placed my hand over his, where it was resting on the metal of the merry-go-round. "You're a fucking amazing, y'know that? Holy shit."

He shook his head in disbelief. "I'm not! No, don't you get it? You don't know me, man, I fucking told you - "

"Shut up, I don't care. You did it and you survived and you're awesome. Jesus Christ Tweek. I said you were the strongest person I know, and I fucking meant it."

I felt him freeze up from where I was touching him. He stared up at our hands, then back up at me, his eyes wide. "You remember that too?"

I nodded. "Only when I mentioned the hospital in the video, but yeah. I remember. I remember you kicking my ass on the playground and kicking my ass in our hospital room. I remember the black eye and the broken nose you gave me. I remember spending the night at Hell's Pass because we were both too beaten and bruised to go home yet. I remember staying up late that night because neither of us could sleep and realizing we knew very little about each other, even though we'd been going to school together for years.

"It was 2 AM and you told me about your rock collection and your useless Indiana Jones trivia and your pet bird. You told me about your inattentive parents, about all the anxieties you have, the way the other kids made fun of you behind your back and to your face because they thought you were fucking weird. I told you that I thought you were the strongest kid I'd ever met, that you didn't need anyone to protect you, and eight years later, that's never been more true. I hope you haven't lost sight of that."

He stared at me for a long time. I could see his eyes searching my face, looking for…what? The honesty? The sincerity? Whatever it was, five long seconds passed before his expression crumbled. I didn't have a chance to react to that, though, because he quickly whipped his head around so I could no longer see his face. He'd snatched his hand out of my grasp as well, using it and the other to grip the sides of his head. He continually ran his fingers through the strands of his hair, over and over in such a nervous flurried fashion, and his breathing was coming fast and short, his shoulders heaving and shaking along with it.

At long last, his movements halted, his shoulders relaxed, and after a deep breath his hands dropped down into his lap.

"You're still the only one who has ever told me that."

"Well, more people should say it because it's true."

"Stop talking." He turned back to me, staring at me with solemn eyes. "Have you ever had someone tell you something about yourself that you'd been insecure about your entire life?"

"I don't - "

"That was a rhetorical question." He closed his eyes, swallowed hard, and then, saying it as if it were a breath he'd been holding in for too long, he finally uttered, "I fell for you that day."

I didn't really process the words right away. They zipped past me like they were in a hurry to get away unnoticed, but I heard them all the same and my mouth went dry.

"…what?"

Tweek's eyes popped open and he flushed brightly as he glared, as if he wasn't eager to repeat himself. "When we were eight-years-old and side by side in the hospital and you told me you thought I was strong, I fell in love with you. I mean, about as in love with you as an eight-year-old can be with another eight-year-old."

I swallowed. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." He glanced at the snow. "I still remember the feeling when it happened. Like - Like I was going to throw up? But in a good way?"

"That…" I was still having trouble forming words. "Sounds familiar."

He smiled wryly. "I'm sure."

I was hoping he'd elaborate after this but it just ended there. About a thousand more questions had now flooded my brain and I didn't know where to begin or even whether I should speak. What was happening right now was so bizarre and unreal to me that I felt like if I said too much I might shatter the illusion.

"So…" That was as good a start as any I guess. "So…then…?"

"We were friends for a year and then I left!" He threw his hands up in the air. "I was hoping that would help me get over it since I doubted we were ever coming back. But in the years I was gone, I couldn't stop thinking about you, like I said. I fell more deeply for you just because of how much my memories of you meant to me, y'know?

"The worst part is that we did come back! I was hoping my stupid childhood crush had ended but in my first week back I caught glimpses of you on campus and across town and it was so embarrassing how bad I still had it for you." He the blush on his face only grew deeper the more he spoke. "So I tried to avoid you, but I couldn't, it's impossible in a town so small. Even when I found out you had forgotten me, I hated you for it because I still loved you so much."

"Then why - ? I mean..." I was flustered and it was hard to form words. "Why didn't you say anything when I told you how I felt? You made it seem like you didn't reciprocate!"

"I tried to dissuade you so you would drop it. I mean, just because I had feelings for you didn't mean I wanted you to feel them back for me." He shrugged. "I didn't think you would like me so much if you really knew me. And I didn't want to wait for that to happen. Being loved by someone is a lot of pressure when you don't feel like you deserve it."

I wanted to protest here, of course, wanted to touch him again and reassure him with all the words I could muster that no, you do deserve it, I like you so much and I don't care what you're really like -

But he kept going.

"'_But, Tweek_,'" he heaved with a sigh, his tone dropping all emotion and adopting a nasal monotonous quality as he imitated my voice. "'Why tell me now? If you didn't want me to know so I wouldn't get my hopes up, what the hell is this?'" He glanced up at me, and speaking in his normal voice again, said, "right?"

"I -"

"Don't worry. I'll let that be your one question." His cleared his throat. "The is not the first time I've been continuously tempted by something that's hard to resist but I know is bad for me. It's hard to fight it and it's easy to just give in and let it happen. So here I am, letting it happen."

I think back to the first time I saw him at my job, when he stole that apple. He came back every day that week and stole something new, and I wondered why a thief would return to the scene of a crime again and again. And I think back to all the times he had nasty attitude toward me, but then all the other rare moments where he was considerably sweeter. I thought about all the ways these moments both confused me and drew me to him at the time they were happening.

Everything made sense now. He wasn't just playing around with me. He was fighting himself. He wanted so badly to squash his own feelings, to not get too close to me, but he couldn't help himself.

That sounded familiar too.

"One Craig question answered," he continued, pointing lazily in my direction. He pivoted the finger and jabbed it against his chest. "My turn. Question one: what now?"

"Huh?" I was still reeling from everything else that had just happened, I couldn't quite focus on the simplicity of the question.

"You brought me all the way out here to show me that thing, you coerced way too information much out of me, now what?"

I didn't really have an answer for that. I didn't expect anything. I did hope that this would magically fix everything, but I didn't know what "fixing everything" was supposed to look like. I guess I just wanted us to be friends again and for everything to be normal. I certainly didn't expect him to confess his feelings for me.

"It wasn't supposed to do anything, I just - wanted to show it to you. Show you that I still had it." I shrugged. "I'm sorry I forgot about you, okay? I was just trying to find a way to prove how sorry I am so you could forgive me and we could move on." I glanced up. "But now I know why you were really upset. It went far beyond me simply forgetting your name and I get it now. I understand."

He raised an eyebrow. "Do you?"

I hesitated. "…or maybe I don't? Maybe I don't know the extent of it, I'm not going to assume anything anymore, but I at least have a better idea, alright? I know I fucked up. You had every right to be livid with me. I'm sorry."

He didn't say anything, so I continued.

"The point was to be able to move on. I wanna start over. Not ignore everything like it didn't happen - just start making some new memories or something gay like that. Especially now that - "

"Now that we've both made it clear that we have feelings for each other?" He snorted. "Okay, question two, kind of a follow-up to the first one: what kind of new memories, Craig? Ones where we're dating? You wanna be my boyfriend?"

It was one thing for me to imagine it, for other people to say it, for me to say it myself. Hearing him say the words brought about a whole new sensation, one I couldn't give a name to, one that involved my heart dropping into the pit of my stomach and a chill sweeping across every inch of my skin. I now understood why Marsh vomited on everyone he's had romantic inclinations toward.

"And what happens when you get tired of me? Or when you come to your senses and realized how fucking awful it is to be around me too long? Those memories are just going to be a slew of new ones for you to forget, huh?"

"That's not going to happen!" I said. "Dude - fuck - I mean fine if you wanna shit all over yourself, whatever! I think you're pretty awesome, but I'm not going to sit here arguing about that right now. And I'm not going to sit here making promises that I'm never going to forget about you again, because I've done that once before and I doubt you're going to believe me at this point. I can tell you though, all that stuff doesn't fucking matter too much, because I'm not going to let you go."

"You sound fairly confident." His raised his eyebrows. "Do you really mean that?"

"I do."

"Why?"

"That your third question?"

"Yeah."

I sighed. "Because I've never liked anything or anyone quite like how I like you and I doubt I'm ever going to again. Trust me, this is the most bizarre thing I've ever gone through, I doubt it's gonna happen again."

He cocked his head ever so slightly, still staring at me, still reading me. "What if I tried to leave?"

"Huh?"

"Not in the sense that we date and I leave you, mind you. What if I just leave? Physically leave?"

"I'd try and convince you to stay, I guess."

"But would you follow me?"

"If you didn't stay?"

"If I didn't stay."

I blinked, mulling it over in my head. "I might, yeah. I'm not so impulsive, but for you, I just might."

Silence again, and then,

"Because I want to, you know."

I looked up at him. "What?"

"I want to leave."

"Leave…where? Where are you going?"

"I want to leave South Park."

I froze. "What? When? Why?"

"It's like you said. Start over and make new memories and all that. I want to leave, I want to go somewhere far."

I remembered my visit to his house a few days ago. "Is that why your mom had all those boxes in the garage? Are you moving again?"

"No." He cast his eyes downward for a moment. "Well, they want to move again. I won't disclose why; you can use that for your one question on a different day. This is unrelated."

"Weren't you just saying you missed home?"

"I was also saying I've been fighting a long battle with myself that I can never win. I was hung up on this place, but it's time to leave. No parents. No agenda. My own terms. I'm done playing safe. I want out. I want to leave."

"Is this—" I licked my lips. I wasn't going to bring this up yet, had planned to do it in a more timely and calculated manner, and it was a great risk on my part to do it now, but I asked anyway. "Does this have anything to do with the break in at the grocery store?"

Fire flashed in his eyes for the briefest of seconds. "That has nothing to do with me."

I didn't say anything more. We had made so much progress I didn't want to ruin it by pressing further.

Now would probably not be a good time to ask him about the missing key.

"No, I've wanted to leave for awhile. Just pack up a bag full of my crap and start walking."

He was being ridiculous. There were a million and one reasons why this was not a good idea. We were seventeen-year-old high schoolers, there was no way he could just up and dump his life and expect it to end well. It was not as romantic as the movies and books led anyone to believe.

"What would it take for me to convince you that that is a pretty stupid idea?" I said.

He shrugged. "Maybe show me there's something worth sticking around for?"

That would be kind of hard. I wasn't particularly fond of our small town myself. It didn't really have a lot going for it.

Tweek could tell I was struggling to formulate a response. He was smiling a smug little grin at my silence.

"After all, why should I stay? So I can finish in school and graduate and go to college? Like I have ambitions that high."

I could work with that. "I thought you wanted to be an archaeologist or a geologist or something. You gotta go to school for that."

"I also wanted to be Indiana Jones."

"He's a professor! Hate to break it to you, dummy, but that requires school."

"No, Dr. Jones was a professor. Indy was an adventurer."

He had a point.

After I fumbled to think of something more to offer and failed after uttering the beginning of two or three different thoughts, he smiled pitifully at me and I gave up.

"Well if you're finished with your compelling argument," he said, "may I offer a rebuttal?"

I said nothing.

"If you come with me - " He picked up the camera where it laid forgotten next to us. "New memories start right now." I watched his fingers dance along the buttons, hovering over the red REC button, and before I could stop him, he stamped the button with his thumb, and aimed the camera right at me.

"Look, it's Craig. Say Hi, Craig."

"What the hell are you doing."

"Craig is seventeen years old and he's about to go on an adventure with me. We're going to walk all the way to Norway or Mali or fuckin' Idaho or some shit."

"Yeah? You sure of that?"

"Yup, and here's how I know, you ready?" He turned the camera on himself and started talking straight to it. "When you watch this in eight years after having forgotten me for the second time, I hope you remember exactly what happens next, alright, you asshole?"

Then he put the camera down, reached forward, grabbed the strings of my hat flaps, pulled me to him, and crashed his lips hard against mine. My eyes were wide and I could see every bit of his face, could see the curve of his nose and count the eyelashes of his closed eyelids. I felt his lips vibrate as he hummed against me, could feel the tip of his nose brush mine as he tilted his head to get a better angle. I memorized all the details, drinking them in, and just as my eyes started to slide shut, he pulled away, standing up as he did.

I'm a bit embarrassed to say that a whine may have escaped me and my body may have involuntarily moved along after him.

He smiled in amusement at what was likely a ridiculous look on my face and I was gracious he resisted the urge to laugh.

"There's more of that where that came from," he said, now holding out his hand. "You wanna see for yourself?"

This was still really stupid to me. There was no way this was going to work and I was so utterly convinced that if we didn't get abducted or lost or murdered somehow, we were just going to end up coming home within a day.

But he had his mind set and I couldn't just let him go off alone. If anything, I could spend the whole "adventure" convincing him that turning around is the best idea. No, it had nothing to do with how badly I wanted to kiss him again, nor did it have anything to do with how I'd say yes to anything he asked of me at this point. Certainly not.

I reached out to grab his hand and let him pull me to my feet, and when neither of us let go at all, our interlocked fingers swinging together between us, I figured, eh, why the hell not.

I could deal with that missing key later.


End file.
